


all of himself that is good

by shellybelle



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-07-11 17:25:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7062517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellybelle/pseuds/shellybelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're all grown up," Tony tells him. "You've got a wife, and kids. Why didn't you think about them before you chose the wrong side?"</p><p>Clint is a father first. But not all family is flesh and blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because my Hawkdad feelings are abundant, and I think we all know that Clint went to war for Wanda.
> 
> Compliant with [no matter what she tells you](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6812596), and fits within the canon established by [nor need we power or splendor](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4053391/chapters/9120604), though you don't need to read either of those fics to understand this one.

_“A father is only capable of giving what he has, and what he knows. A good father gives all of himself that is good.”_

_Vincent Carrella_

  


**then**

 

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Wanda said quietly.

 

She looked at the floor as she said it, her hair falling around her face and obscuring her features from view, but the uncertainty in her voice came through clear. Clint turned his beer bottle between his hands, his fingers leaving smooth streaks through the condensation sweating against the glass. “Everybody thinks that,” he said, “when they’re gonna do something that scares them.”

 

Wanda lifted her head to look at him. The yellow warmth of the porch lights painted amber highlights on her skin, the shadows under her eyes deeper than they seemed in daylight, when she chased the kids and played with the baby and laughed without sounding hollow. “Everything that I do scares me now,” she whispered. “Every touch. I am always afraid.”

 

Clint watched her twist her fingers together. “What scares you?”

 

“That I’ll lose control,” she said. She spoke to her hands, not to him. “That something will happen and I’ll lash out, and I won’t be able to stop myself.”

 

He looked thoughtfully at her for a moment, and then, casually, pushed her off the porch steps. Wanda landed with a startled sound and looked up at him in confusion and hurt. “Why did you do that?” she demanded.

 

Clint cocked his head to one side. “You mad?”

 

“Yes,” she snapped.

 

“You in control?”

 

Wanda paused. She looked at her hands. She looked at him. Clint raised an eyebrow, waiting. “Oh,” she said, and he smiled.

 

**now**

 

“Dad!”

 

Cooper’s yell takes him by surprise, and Clint snaps his head up, smacking his forehead into the bottom of the tractor. “Fu--udge,” he finishes, sitting up in time to see Cooper skid into the barn. Cooper gives him a _you’re not fooling anyone_ look, which Clint elects to ignore. “What’s up, buddy?”

 

“Mom wants you,” Cooper says.

 

Clint frowns. “Everything okay?”

 

“I don’t know,” Cooper says. “She was watching the news and then she said to come get you.”

 

That’s never a good sign. Clint climbs to his feet, grabbing a rag off the top of the tractor to clean the worst of the grease off his hands as he follows Cooper back into the house.

 

Laura has her back to him when he comes into the living room, but the stiff set of her shoulders tells him in an instant that something is wrong. Dread, cold and heavy, pools in the bottom of his stomach. “Laura,” he begins to ask, and then stops, looking past her to the television, where the screen is full of smoke and fire and the sounds of panic. For a moment he’s not sure what he’s looking at it, and then he sees the sweep of Sam’s wings as he cuts through the shot. “Jesus,” he breathes.

 

Coming up beside him, Cooper draws in a sharp breath, and then tugs on Clint’s shirt. “Dad,” he says. “What’s going on?”

 

Clint’s mouth feels very, very dry, but he forces himself to swallow. “I’m not sure yet, bud,” he says, keeping his voice carefully calm. “Do me a favor and go play upstairs for a bit while Mom and I learn a little more, okay?”

 

Cooper narrows his eyes, gives Clint the expression he’s started using more and more often lately, the one that says _I’m almost eleven, Dad, I can_ know _stuff now_. Clint takes a breath, steadies himself. “Now, please.”

 

Something in his tone gets through to him. Cooper shoots Laura an uncertain look, but picks up his tablet and leaves the room, his footsteps audible on the stairs a moment later. Clint turns back to the screen. “Where is that?”

 

“Nigeria,” Laura says, her voice very small. “Clint, they’re saying--They said it was Wanda.”

 

Clint drags his eyes away from the screen, stares at her. “What?” She gestures to the screen, but he shakes his head. “No.” It’s not denial. He takes in the chaos on the screen, playing and replaying a shot of an explosion from different angles. “Her powers don’t work like that. It’s manipulation and moving shit with her brain, not pyrotechnics. There must be something they’re not saying.”

 

The footage changes, paramedics carrying shrouded bodies from the building. Some of them are very, very small, and Laura makes a soft, pained sound. Clint moves forward, wrapping an arm around her and carefully taking the television remote from her trembling fingers. Without looking, he switches the screen off. “Laur,” he says. “It’s okay.”

 

“Nat was there,” she says, the words muffled into his chest.

 

“I’ll call her.” He strokes her hair. “But I’m sure she’s fine.”

 

She shudders. “It was almost the top floor,” she says.

 

Clint knows what she’s thinking, doesn’t need to hear it out loud. “I wasn’t there, Laura,” he says. “I got out. I came home.”

 

“Right.” Laura takes a shaking breath, and then another. “Right. I know. I’m going to…” She trails off, like she isn’t sure what she wants to do now. Clint leans down and kisses her forehead.

 

“”Go for a walk,” he suggests. “Clear your head. I’ll take care of dinner.”

 

Laura hesitates. “Yeah?”

 

He nudges her. “Go.”

 

She musters up a small smile, standing on tiptoe to kiss his jaw before padding out on the room, her sandals tapping quietly on the floor. Clint watches her go, and then looks back at the dark, silent screen. “Jesus, Wanda,” he mutters. “What the hell happened out there?”

 

“Dada,” Nate says from the floor, where he’s been contentedly patting Lucky’s fur while the dog naps in a sunbeam. Clint looks down at him, and Nate looks up, drooling happily before holding out his arms. “Up,” he says.

 

“Up,” Clint agrees, scooping him up and onto his hip. Lucky opens his eye, huffs at the absence of pats, and then goes back to sleep. Clint snorts. “Wish I had your attitude, buddy.”

 

“Wiss,” Nate says, and grabs at Clint’s nose.

 

…

 

Flight time from Lagos to New York means Clint has hours to make dinner, feed the kids, watch a movie with Cooper and Lila, give Nate a bath, supervise bedtime, and clean up, and still have plenty of time leftover to sit up and worry. Laura stays up with him, putting on a pot of coffee when her head starts to droop, fiddling anxiously with her necklace as she sits next to him on the couch.

 

In the small hours of the morning, bleary-eyed like she hasn’t been since the early weeks after Nate’s birth, and says, “Now?”

 

Clint checks his watch, does some mental calculations, and shrugs. “Worth a try,” he says, and makes the call.

 

To his surprise, Natasha picks up. “Hey.”

 

She sounds hoarse and exhausted, and Clint has to pry his heart out of his throat before he answers. “Hey. Nigeria’s all over the news. Are you okay?”

 

“I’m fine. I’m okay. A little banged up.” Her voice has the sort of rasp that only comes with smoke inhalation, but he doesn’t push her, just nods reassuringly to Laura. Her face collapses in relief. “What are they saying?”

 

Clint rubs his eyes. Laura soothes a hand over his back. “Nothing good,” he says. He doesn’t say _what the fuck happened_ , but he wants to. He sighs. “Is Wanda alright?”

 

The line goes quiet, save for the distant hum of the quinjet’s engines. He wonders, briefly, who’s piloting, and then mentally kicks himself for it. Not his plane. Not his job.

 

“She’s fine,” Natasha says finally, and because Clint loves her, he doesn’t immediately call her on that absolute bullshit. “She’s sleeping. I’ll have her call you when we dock in.”

 

Clint looks at Laura, and gives a slight shake of his head. Her brow furrows, ut she gives a resigned nod. “Right,” he says. The baby monitor crackles into life on the coffee table, Nate giggling at something in his sleep, simple and sweet and delighted. Clint tries to remember the last time he slept like that, and can’t. “Fly safe, Nat.”

 

“We will.”

 

She disconnects the call. Clint puts his phone down and scrubs a hand over his face. Laura scratches the back of his neck gently. “Is she okay?”

 

He doesn’t ask who she means. It won’t change his answer. “She says she’s fine.”

 

Laura keeps her hand against his neck, a gentle, soothing touch. He leans back into it, and she runs her thumb over his pulse. “Did she tell you what happened?”

 

No.” Clint glances at her. “We could check the news again.”

 

Laura shakes her head. “Whatever they’re saying won’t be accurate.” Clint snorts. That’s for damn sure. He’s lost track of the number of times Laura’s ranted about whatever story her mother had heard on the news about the Avengers and then called Laura to complain about. “We should hear it from Wanda first.”

 

He nods tiredly. For all his nostalgia for his Avenging days, he doesn’t miss the media circus that had come with it. He’s lucky, he knows, that the media--mainstream and tabloid--hadn’t paid too much attention to him. He figures it made sense, though--why take interest in a normal guy with a bow when you could get a shot of Captain America?

 

“Hey,” Laura says, nudging him. “Where’s your head, Hawkeye?”

  
Clint pulls himself back to the present, focuses in on Laura’s face, tired and concerned and soft in the low lamplight. He wonders, not for the first time, how it is that she’s even more beautiful now than on the day they met more than twenty years ago. He reaches for her hand. “Right here,” he says. “I’m right where I want to be.”

 

…

 

Laura decides to stay up since it’s already nearly dawn, but Clint’s had time to learn from experience that his body functions better on half an hour of sleep than on none at all, so he crashes upstairs when they hang up with Nat. He passes out as soon as his head hits the bed, but sleeps badly, his dreams full of smoke and fire, and the sound of someone crying, but he can’t figure out who.

 

When his alarm goes off, he rolls out of bed with a groan-- _getting old, Barton_ \--and drags himself down the hall to wake the kids up for school. Lila climbs over him with a sleepy yawn to go pull on the clothes she’d laid out the night before on her dresser, Cooper taking considerably more persuasion before rolling reluctantly out from under the blanket burrito he’d rolled himself into during the night. “You get that from me,” Clint tells him fondly, and Cooper makes a cranky face at him as he pushes his head through the neck of his t-shirt, his dark hair sticking up in every possible direction. Clint ruffles his hair, ostensibly to smooth it even though he knows Laura’ll comb it anyway, and then heads down to Nate’s room, finding the baby already standing in his crib, bouncing happily and waiting for him. “Glad you’ve got some energy,” he says, bending down to lift him out and give him a quick diaper change before settling him on his hip, reaching into the crib for the drool-damp Hawkeye plushie Natasha had bought him as a joke. (Joke’s on her, he thinks, it’s Nate’s absolute favorite.)

 

“Gad,” Nate says, making grabby hands for the toy. “Da-toh.”

 

Clint chuckles, handing it to him. It had taken awhile for them to figure out that _Da-toh_ meant “Daddy toy” the same way that Cooper had said _Mookey_ for “Monkey” and Lila had said _Mi-woo_ for “Mister Wolf” (now just fondly known as “Wolfie,” the only one of their kids’ favorite toys to have gotten a new nickname later in life). “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go see Mommy.”

 

Nate’s face lights up. “Mama!” he exclaims.

 

Clint kisses his nose in confirmation, poking his head into Cooper’s room to confirm that he’d gone downstairs and not crawled back into bed, and then heads downstairs. Laura’s in the kitchen, mixing cereal and yogurt together for Lila while Cooper munches sleepily on a piece of toast slathered in peanut butter. She looks up at him when he enters, dark circles under her eyes. “Morning.”

 

“Morning.” He kisses her cheek and offers her the baby. “Trade you?”

 

She nods, holding out her arms for Nate and carrying him over to the table while Clint finishes Lila’s breakfast and pours a mug of coffee for Laura, bringing both to the table before going back for a mug of his own, dropping heavily into his chair.

 

Cooper looks up at him. “How come you two look so sleepy?”

 

“We stayed up past our bedtime,” Clint tells him.

 

He narrows his eyes. “How come?”

 

“Because we did not have a mom and dad there to enforce bedtime rules,” Laura says, taking the mug Clint hands her and inhaling the steam like it’s an elixir. “And look where it got us.”

 

Lila giggles into her cereal. Cooper frowns. “Does this have something to do with whatever Mom wouldn’t let us watch on the news?”

 

Clint looks at Laura. “He gets this from you, you know,” he says dryly. She gives him the look that says she would very much like to flip him the bird, but can’t because their children are watching.

 

“Gets what?” Cooper pokes Clint with his toes under the table when he doesn’t answer right away. “Dad, gets what?”

 

“Your brains,” Clint tells him. “It’s a good thing. Your mom is much smarter than me.”

 

“What did I get, Daddy?” Lila asks.

 

“My tumbling and Mommy’s hair,” Clint says. Laura snorts into her coffee. “Among other things.”

 

“Did Nate get anything?”

 

“Dad’s nose,” Cooper says. Clint resists the urge to take one of Nate’s cheerios and throw it at his head, because he’s The Parent. “Besides, Nate’s gonna get stuff from Aunt Nat, ‘cause he’s named after her.”

 

“I wanna get stuff from Auntie Nat,” Lila complains.

 

Clint sips his coffee. “Most of Auntie Nat’s stuff won’t help you till you’re older,” he says diplomatically. “What are you going to do at school today?”

 

“Dad,” Cooper says, “you’re changing the subject.”

 

Clint very deliberately does not turn his eyes toward the ceiling in prayer. “Kinda hoping you wouldn’t catch that, buddy.”

 

“I can’t help it,” Cooper says, reflecting Clint’s own shit-eating grin right back at him. “I’m smart.”

 

Laura snorts. Clint squints pointedly at her, then turns to Cooper. “It’s kind of a grown-up thing, Coop,” he says gently.

 

Cooper puts his toast down. “Is it Avengers stuff?” he asks, leaning forward in his chair.

  
Clint sighs. “Yes, it’s Avengers stuff.”

 

“Is Auntie Nat okay?” Lila asks, her voice very small.

 

Laura’s face softens. “Oh, sweetheart,” she says. “Yes, Auntie Nat is fine. We would tell you if something happened to her.”

 

“So then what is it?” Cooper presses.

 

Clint looks across the table at Laura, cocking his head to one side. She adjusts Nate on her lap and shrugs at him. “It’s a little complicated, buddy,” he says slowly. “The Avengers did some fighting yesterday, and some innocent people got hurt by accident. Mom and I were just...We’re a little worried about what might happen next.”

 

Lila furrows her brow. “Are the Avengers gonna get in trouble?”

 

“We hope not, baby,” Laura says, bouncing Nate gently on her knee as he puts a handful of banana into his mouth. “But we stayed up late because we wanted to hear from Auntie Nat that she was okay and everyone was coming home safe and sound.” She looks at Cooper. “Does that answer your question, honey?”

 

He chews his bite of toast thoughtfully, a slight furrow still visible between his eyebrows. “I guess so,” he says finally. He’s quiet for a moment, and then looks at Clint. “If the Avengers get in trouble, do you get in trouble?”

 

Clint hesitates at that, because he’s never really thought about it. Technically, he supposes, he’s still on the Avengers roster--Steve hasn’t called him in for active duty missions since Ultron, but he’s gone out to the compound to help with training simulations and tech consults. “I don’t know, Cooper,” he admits. “But I’ll let you know if I figure it out, okay?”

 

Cooper presses his lips together, clearly not totally satisfied, but he nods.

 

“Good,” Laura says, with more brightness in her tone than Clint feels capable of. “Now, let’s finish up breakfast, please. We’ve got school to get to.”

 

For a little while, at least, Clint thinks that’s the end of it. He cleans up the breakfast dishes while Laura goes upstairs to put on makeup and the older kids get their backpacks together, Nate watching the whole affair from his high chair through curious blue eyes that refuse to darken to Cooper and Lila’s brown. He babbles happily to Clint as Clint washes dishes, and Clint makes agreeable comments in response, half-pretending to carry on a conversation with him, because Laura insists that it’s good for his language development. “Really,” he says, after Nate says something that sounds vaguely like a scat solo on a Ella Fitzgerald album. “I don’t know, buddy. You sure you want to do that in this economy?”

 

“Really, Clint?” Laura says with a chuckle, coming back into the kitchen, fastening the back of her earring as she bends to kiss Nate’s head. “You’re talking stock options with our one-year-old?”

 

Clint shrugs, turning off the sink and drying his hands on a nearby towel. “Keeps him entertained,” he says. “Besides, what do I know about investing?”

 

Laura shakes her head in amusement. She’s dressed for work, managing to look simultaneously professional, comfortable, and approachable in a way that Clint would be absolutely incapable of replicating. She leans against the counter, toying with her wedding ring. “You’ll let me know if you hear from Wanda?”

 

“Of course,” he says. There are circles under her eyes, visible despite carefully applied makeup. It doesn’t make her any less beautiful. He leans over and kisses her forehead. “It’s gonna be fine, Laur.”

 

She nods slowly. “I know,” she says. “At least, I think I do. But I was thinking of what Lila said, about the Avengers getting in trouble…” She shakes her head. “I hadn’t worried about that before. But now I can’t stop thinking about it.”

 

Clint mirrors her posture, forearms on the counter. “I know,” he admits. “But for now, let’s...Let’s focus on the stuff we actually know, okay? We’ll figure out the rest when we have to.” He leaned forward, tucking a few strands of her hair behind her ear and brushing one fingertip against her earring, simple pearl, a gift from Natasha on their third anniversary. “One day at a time, right?”

 

Laura smiles softly, turning her head to kiss his palm. “Okay,” she says. “One day at a time.”

 

…

 

Wanda calls in the early afternoon, just as Clint finishes putting Nate down for his nap. He tiptoes down the stairs before he picks up, glancing at the caller ID display and catching his breath when he sees Wanda’s name. “Hey, kiddo,” he says carefully.

 

“Clint.” Her voice is small. “Did you see?”

 

Not a good start, he thinks. He goes into the kitchen, pinning the phone between his shoulder and ear as he puts up another pot of coffee. He’s pretty sure he’s going to need it. “Only a shot or two,” he says, which is true enough. He’d turned the television off. “News reporting isn’t always the best way to get the truth, especially about Avengers stuff.” She doesn’t respond, and Clint gives her a few minutes of silence before he tries again. “You want to tell me what happened, Wanda?”

 

“It was a mistake,” she says, so much guilt and shame in her voice that Clint has to close his eyes. “Rumlow...He had a bomb. Steve didn’t see it, but I did. I was trying to contain the explosion--there were so many people on the street.”

 

Clint closes his eyes. “Where did it go wrong?”

 

He asks it simply, like he’d ask any question on a mission debrief. It’s better than coddling her, and he hears the trembling relief in Wanda’s voice when she answers. “I couldn’t see the angle,” she says. “I could not see how close he was to the building. All I could think of was getting him away from the people on the ground. And then--” Her voice catches, and she swallows audibly. “I couldn’t stop it,” she whispers.

 

The coffee machine beeps. Clint pulls the carafe off the heating plate and pours a large mug. He’s starting to get the feeling he might find himself on a plane pretty soon. “Wanda,” he says quietly. “You did everything you could.”

 

“Maybe,” she says, bitterly. “But it does not matter. People are dead.” She’s quiet for a moment, and then, her voice small and hesitant, whispers, “Have you heard what they are saying about me?”

 

Clint sits down at the kitchen table. “I told you,” he says. “I turned off the news.”

 

“They’re saying I’m dangerous,” she says. “That I am not human anymore. That I do not care if people die.”

 

“None of that is true,” Clint says immediately, almost sharply. He wonders, vaguely, if Nat would help him fuck up some reporters. Probably not. And anyway, Laura would kill him. “Wanda, you know that’s not true, right?”

 

“It does not matter what is true,” Wanda says dully. “It is what they say. And soon everyone will believe it.”

 

“No. Not the people who matter.” Clint waits for her to argue, to say something back, but she doesn’t.

 

“People are dead because of me.”  
  


“Yes,” Clint says, because it’s true. “But people are alive because of you, too.”

 

Wanda sniffles, pulls in a quivering breath, and then starts, quietly, to cry. _Shit_ , Clint thinks, heart clenching. He’ll take being shot in the chest over listening to someone cry over the phone, too far away for him to do anything useful to help, any day of the week. “Wanda,” he says. He keeps his tone gentle, more like what he’d use with Cooper or Lila than with Laura or Nat. “Hey. Do you need a break? Want me to come get you?”

 

She sniffs wetly. “No,” she says. “You have the children to look after. I know you are busy.”

 

Clint rubs his forehead. They go through this every time, Wanda apparently stuck in the belief that she’s an afterthought or a burden and Clint attempting to convince her she’s not with a practiced combination of tough love and exasperated affection. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s try that again. Do you want me to come get you?”

 

Wet silence on the other end of the line, punctuated only by shaking breaths and damp sniffles. Clint waits, as patiently as he can manage, sipping his coffee to keep himself grounded.

 

“Please,” Wanda says finally, small and quiet.

 

Clint relaxes the fingers he's tightened around his mug. “Okay,” he says gently. “I'll be there soon.”

 

…

 

He can't exactly bring the baby with him to New York, so it takes a bit of negotiating before he can get on the road. He calls Laura on his way to pick Cooper up from baseball practice, Nate babbling cheerfully in the backseat, and she tells him to call her parents. That leads to a much longer conversation with his mother-in-law than he’s really hoping for, but she happily agrees to drive up in the morning to stay with Nate while he flies out to New York.

 

“And you should know, Clint,” she says before they hang up, her voice tinged with the maternal tenderness that Laura has absolutely inherited, “I don’t believe a thing they’re saying about that poor girl. Anyone can see that she was doing everything she could to save those people.”

 

Clint feels a sudden and surprising surge of affection towards her. He gets along pretty well with both of Laura’s parents, can never be anything but absurdly grateful to them for the fantastic daughter they raised, but they can be exhausting from time to time. Right now, though, Laura’s mom has just planted herself firmly on his good side. “I’ll tell her you said so,” he says. “It’ll mean a lot to her.”

 

“Good,” she says, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. “I can be at the house around ten tomorrow morning, does that work?”

 

He pulls up to the middle school baseball field, catching sight of Cooper perched on the bleachers and waving. Cooper gives a bright grin and hops down, picking up his backpack and jogging over to the car. “That’s perfect,” he says. “Thanks, Sarah. Listen, Coop just got in the car and we’ve gotta head home. I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

 

“Sure, honey. Give Laura and the kids my love.”

 

“Will do.” He hangs up. “Grandma says hi,” he tells Cooper.

 

Cooper buckles his seatbelt and looks curiously at him. “How come you were talking to Grandma?”

 

“She’s coming to visit tomorrow,” Clint says, checking his rearview mirror and pulling away from the curb. “How was practice?”

 

“It was good,” Cooper says. “I hit two home runs.”

  
“Nice, buddy!” Clint reaches his hand back, and Cooper gives him a high-five. “How’d that feel?”

 

“Pretty awesome. Why’s Grandma visiting?”

 

In his next life, Clint thinks, his kids will be less persistent. “I’m flying out to New York tomorrow, so she’s gonna watch Nate and then come pick you guys up.”

 

He catches Cooper’s frown in the mirror. “Why are you going to New York? I thought you didn’t do Avengers stuff anymore.”

 

“I’m not,” Clint says, glad that, for once, he has an answer for Cooper that won’t upset him. “I’m just picking up Wanda to bring her back for a visit.”

 

Predictably, Cooper’s face lights up. “Really?”

 

“Really,” Clint says. He glances back. “But she’s had a rough couple days, Coop, so let her take it easy when she’s out here, okay?”

 

Cooper nods. “Will you bring Aunt Nat back, too?”

 

Clint thinks about that. Natasha hasn’t been home in about a month; she _does_ owe them a visit. “I’ll see what I can do,” he says. “I don’t know what she’s got going on on her end.” Privately, he doesn’t really care what she’s got going on, he’s totally willing to just grab her around the waist and haul her off to a quinjet, but Laura pushes the whole _respect_ thing, and anyway, Nat can and would break his nose without a second thought. “Should I let you know, or do you want it to be a surprise?”

 

Cooper takes a moment to think about it. “If you tell me, can I keep it a secret from Lila?”

 

“Nope,” Clint says, partially because Cooper is terrible at keeping secrets, and partially because Lila will throw a fit.

 

“Aw, Dad,” Cooper complains.

  
“Ah, Dah,” Nate says.

 

“See?” Cooper says. “Nate thinks I should get to know.”

 

“Nate thinks the dog’s fur is food,” Clint says dryly. “No deal, kiddo.” He stops at a red light and glances over his shoulder to waggle his eyebrows at Nate, who squeals in delight and attempts to replicate his expression. Clint chuckles, turning back around.

 

Cooper sticks his tongue out at him in the rear view mirror. “How long are you gonna be gone?”

 

Clint shakes his head. “Not sure. Depends on if they have a spare plane I can snag.”

 

“Why can’t Wanda fly on a regular plane?”

 

“That’s...kind of complicated,” Clint says. He’s not really sure how to explain visas, passports, foreign nationals, and legal identification to his ten-year-old. “When grown-ups travel, they need to have documents that say who they are and that they’re allowed to fly on planes in our country. Wanda doesn’t have those.”

 

Cooper frowns. “How come?”  
  


“Uh...also complicated.” Clint drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “To be honest, I’m not sure I really understand all of it. Mom might be a better person to ask, buddy.”

 

“Okay,” Cooper says agreeably, and Clint is very, very glad that he listened to all those times that Laura told him it’s better to tell a kid you don’t know than it is to make up a lie. “Hey, will you bring home bagels?”

 

Clint chuckles. “I don’t know,” he says. “That’s a lot of requests, dude. A Wanda, a Nat, and now bagels? What if you have to choose?”

 

He glances in the mirror, suppressing a grin at Cooper’s thoughtful expression. “Could they leave you there and fly back with bagels?” Cooper asks finally, giving Clint a slow grin.

 

“ _Ouch_ ,” Clint says, putting a hand to his chest. “Just for that, you’re getting pumpernickel and pumpernickel only.”

 

“Gross,” Cooper says. “I take it back.”

 

“Too late. Pumpernickel forever.”

 

“Aw, _Dad_ ,” Cooper says. Nate shrieks an agreement, and Clint laughs the rest of the way home.

 

…

 

The kids always get antsy when Clint leaves, and apparently that’s true even when he’s not going Avenging. Lila spends breakfast pouting into her cereal, and Cooper looks grumpily at Nate every time he fusses, and even that seems more frequent than usual.

 

Laura raises her eyebrows at Clint from across the table as he attempts to get slightly more food into Nate’s mouth than on his face and hands and clothes. “How long did you say you’d be gone, dear?” she asks mildly.

 

Clint catches a glob of half-chewed oatmeal on a spoon and maneuvers it back into Nate’s mouth. Nate looks slightly put out at having his plan to get food everywhere foiled. “Depends on Wanda,” he says.

 

Nate spits the oatmeal out again and crows victoriously when Clint makes a face at him. “Try again,” Laura says dryly.

 

“Uh,” Clint says. “I’ll be home by tomorrow night?”

 

Laura smiles. “Much better.”

 

“With Wanda and Auntie Nat and bagels?” Lila asks, brightening.

 

“Yes to Wanda, probably to Aunt Nat,” Clint says. “Bagels only if Mom says you’ve been good.” He gives Cooper a pointed look. “Which means not antagonizing your brother and sister.”

 

Cooper sticks his tongue out, but salutes Clint with his spoon in acknowledgment. Clint snorts. “Good thing you’re cute, kid.”

 

“I take after mom,” Cooper says, all cheek.

 

Laura laughs, leaning over to kiss Cooper’s cheek. “That’s my boy.”

 

Cleaning Nate up from breakfast turns out to be more than their usual damp washcloth can handle. Clint brings him upstairs for an impromptu morning bath, and Laura follows him, leaning against the bathroom door as Clint strips Nate out of his pajamas and diaper and plops him into the laundry basket still sitting in the tub from last night’s bath. “When are you heading out?” she asks, one ear cocked toward the hallway to listen to Cooper and Lila, getting dressed in their rooms.

 

“A bit after ten, I hope,” Clint says, turning the water on and testing the temperature. “Got a twelve thirty flight.” He hands Nate a large rubber whale, and Nate makes a delighted sound, sticking the whale’s tail in his mouth. “At least you’re mom’s getting a clean kid to play with.”

 

Laura smiles, eyes tender as she watches them. “I don’t think she’d mind either way,” she says. “You told her where and when to pick up the kids?”

 

Clint nods, wiping oatmeal and fruit juice from Nate’s face, neck, and chest. Figures the only thing the kid got from him was an ability to be a huge mess. “Do you need her to pick Lila up from gymnastics, too, or just drop her off?”

 

“I can pick her up.” Laura’s shoulder brushes against his as she comes to crouch next to him. She tickles Nate under his chin with one finger, and he squeals happily, grabbing for it. She laughs softly and bumps Clint’s shoulder with hers. “For the record,” she says. “Have I mentioned how attractive I find your competent and loving parenting?”

 

Clint shoots her a leer. “Obviously. Why do you think I do it?” He waggles his eyebrows for extra emphasis. Laura laughs.

 

“Dork,” she says fondly, kissing his cheek. She runs her hand through his hair, sobering slightly. “You’ll call me tonight, right? To let me know how Wanda’s doing?”

 

“Of course.” He pauses in his soaping of Nate’s chest with the washcloth, holding Nate up with one hand and looking more closely at her. Her eyes are soft and worried, faintly tight at the corners, the way she does when she doesn’t like what’s going on. “Laura,” he says. “What is it?”

 

“I just…” She bites her lip. “I wish I could go with you. To be there for her.”

 

Clint pauses. Nate kicks his feet in the water. “Laur, you know you can’t,” he says carefully. “Only half a dozen people in that compound know you exist, and we need to keep it that way.”

 

“I know.” She runs a hand through her hair. “I know that. I just don’t like it.”

 

He leans over to kiss her cheek. “I know you don’t. Which is why I’m going to bring her back here, and you can mom the crap out of her, okay?”

 

Laura manages a small laugh. “Good enough, Hawkeye,” she says. She raises an eyebrow. “What do you tell people about where you take her off to, anyway?”

 

Clint snorts, rinsing Nate off with a cup of water. Nate giggles and attempts to take the cup from him. “I don’t tell them anything,” he says. “I give them the resting face and tell them it’s above their security clearance.”

 

“Anything but the resting face,” she teases. Clint fixes her with it, and she laughs.

 

Lila sticks her head into the bathroom. “Mommy, will you braid my hair for school?”

 

“Sure, honey.” Laura climbs to her feet, dipping down to kiss Clint’s head and Nate’s. “You’ll come down to say goodbye before we leave?” she asks.

 

Clint pulls the plug on the bathtub. The water starts to swirl down the drain, to Nate’s shrieks of delight. “I always do,” he says, and Laura smiles.

 

…

 

He flies commercial out to Albany, and rents a car at the airport for the drive out to the compound. The woman at the counter looks vaguely surprised when he just asks for a midsize sedan, and he can’t keep from quirking a small smile--in a worn leather jacket, faded jeans, and workboots, he knows he looks like the sort of guy to ask for a truck or an SUV, but what can he say? Months as a full-time dad have made him value practicality over flash.

 

(He is, however, very glad that Stark is in Malibu this week. There’s not a doubt in his mind that Tony will give him gleeful hours of shit for turning up in a Hyundai.)

 

The drive is easy and green, the car handling smoothly over the miles of country highway. It’s all farmland out here, planted and clean, and it reminds Clint of home. He rolls down the windows to breathe the smell of pastures and cows and soil, the sun warming his skin where he rests his arm against the open window.

 

Even though he’s spent time at the compound before, it still takes him by surprise as it looms out from the pastoral skyline, gleaming and new and chrome. The perimeter’s been extended, he notes, slowing down as he pulls up to a guardhouse that hadn’t been there at his last visit. A guard in a SHIELD uniform steps out as he approaches. “Hey,” Clint says, easily. “Here for a visit.”

 

The guard--young, Clint thinks, maybe early twenties, if that--frowns, consulting the tablet in his hands. “Name?”

 

Clint raises his eyebrows. “Barton.”

 

The kid frowns. “Barton?” No sign of recognition. _Ouch_ , Clint thinks. Guess fame really is fleeting. The guard looks at his tablet again. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t have you on my list.”

 

“Yeah, well, I usually don’t have to be on a list,” Clint says, dryly. “I used to work here, you know.”

 

“Uh,” the kid says. He looks nervous. Clint wonders if it’s his first day on the job, and wants to tell him to straighten up a bit. “I can’t let you in if you’re not on the access list, sir.”

 

Clint fixes him with a thoughtful look, and the kid shrinks slightly. “I see,” Clint drawls. He pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket and dials Natasha. “Hey, Nat,” he says, when she picks up. “I’m out front. Mind having a word with my friend here at the gate?”

 

He hands the phone through the window. “Black Widow on the line for you, kid.”

 

The kid reaches out a hand to take the phone--Jesus, Clint thinks, what the hell are they teaching agents these days?--and puts it to his ear. Over the next several seconds, he goes steadily paler, stammering out a “yes ma’am” and a “no ma’am” and then an “of course, ma’am” before handing the phone back to Clint. “Go right ahead in, Mr. Barton, sir.”

 

Clint grins at him, showing just enough teeth that he thinks Natasha would be proud. “Thanks, kid,” he says easily, and drives through.

 

Natasha meets him at the main building, a smirk firmly in place on her lips. “Not a damn word, Romanoff,” he says, climbing out of the car.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says serenely, but grins. “I can see why you wanted to have Avengers ID cards now.”

 

“That and discounts at Starbucks,” Clint says, bumping her shoulder. She doesn’t look too bad, all things considered--she’s favoring her right leg a bit and her voice still has a faint rasp, but no visible injuries. “You okay?”

 

Her grin softens. “I’m fine,” she says. She pauses as they walk back toward the door. “I assume you’re gonna check anyway?”

 

“Have to,” he says, nodding seriously. “Promised the wife.”

 

Natasha laughs. “Well, if you promised the wife.” The door slides open as she touches an ID card to a panel, then takes an identical card from the pocket of her jeans. “Here. Before I forget.”

 

He takes it. “All access pass?”

 

She shrugs. “Everything I’ve got, you’ve got.”

 

“Thanks,” he says dryly. He hopes that doesn’t mean he’s going to have to tag into team training. He’s kept himself in good shape, but he did _not_ pack the right footwear for that kind of thing. “Is this the part where you show me to my lovely but impersonal guest room?”

 

Natasha shakes her head, auburn ponytail--it’s darker than he’s seen it for awhile, but it looks good, and he makes a note to tell her that later--swinging with the motion. “Figured you’d want to see Wanda,” she says, and then hesitates. “She’s not doing great.”

 

Clint frowns. “How not great?”

 

“She hasn’t come out of her room today,” Natasha says softly, hitting the call button as they reach the elevator bay. “Steve had to talk her out yesterday. She’s taking it really hard.”

 

The elevator dings, and they step in. “Can you blame her?” Clint asks.

 

Natasha presses the button for the Avengers residential floor, scanning her keycard again. “Things happen in battle,” she says, not unkindly, in that quiet, matter-of-fact way she has when she’s giving a harsh truth. “She made a call, and it went bad. It happens to all of us.”

 

“Yeah, but this was the first time it happened to her,” Clint counters.

 

She looks at him thoughtfully. “You know, Barton,” she says, “that’s almost a mature viewpoint.”

 

He shrugs. “Had to happen sometime.”

 

The elevator doors open, and they step out. Clint starts to turn down the hall he remembers leading to Wanda’s room, and then pauses when he realizes Natasha’s not following him. “You coming?”

 

“Not this time.” She smiles faintly. “I think right now she needs a little less mentoring pep-talk and more…” She arches one brow. “I’m looking for a word that isn’t _parenting_ , but gets the point across.”

 

Clint snorts. “Let me know if you find one,” he says dryly. “I’ve been trying to think of one myself.”

 

“Will do.” She gives him a small nudge. “Go on, Hawkeye. Come find me when you’re done with her.”

 

He tilts his head to one side. “Come find you?”

 

“Well.” Natasha smiles, eyes flashing. “You did say something about checking me for injuries.”

 

Clint laughs, something loosening in his chest, and sweeps their current position for cameras before swatting briefly at her ass. Natasha snickers, twisting gracefully away from him and stepping back into the elevator, and Clint rolls his eyes, heading down the hall.

 

Wanda’s door is closed when he reaches it, and he raps his knuckles against it.

 

“Go away.” The words are slightly muffled by the door, but audible enough. Clint sighs.

 

“Wanda,” he says. “It’s Clint. Gonna be really cranky if I came all the way out here and you don’t let me in.”

 

There’s a beat of silence, and then a sigh. “You can come in.”

 

Relieved that he doesn’t have to kick the door down--not that he’s really sure he could; this place _was_ designed by Stark--and tries the knob, surprised to find it unlocked. Carefully, he smoothes his expression to calm concern, and steps inside.

 

Wanda is a curled ball under her blankets, her only visible feature the tendrils of dark hair escaping from the apparent cocoon. Clint closes the door behind him, casting a look around the room. Despite the sadness and guilt that’s practically palpable in the air, the room is still fairly neat. It looks more and more lived-in each time he sees it, and Clint’s glad about that. Natasha had taken Wanda shopping to furnish the room, Laura giving her own input through a video call on Natasha’s phone, and he can see Laura’s softer influences in the styling of the room as well as Natasha’s sleeker tastes, but the room still has _Wanda_ written all over it. He smiles faintly to see the guitar in its stand--that had been his birthday gift to her, months ago, along with a promise to teach her to play; they’ve had lessons over secured Skype lines and visits to the farm.

 

A photo of Nathaniel pinned to the bulletin board on her desk catches his eye, and he smiles. It’s a little out of date, and he makes a note to bring her a new one.

 

He crosses the room to the bed, studying the lump of blankets and then poking around to make sure he doesn’t sit on any of her limbs before he settles down in what seems like a safe place. “Hey, kiddo,” he says. There’s no response, and he pats at what he’s pretty sure is Wanda’s shoulder.

 

“That is my head,” she says, her voice muffled.

 

“Not my fault,” he says. “You covered it with blankets.” She doesn’t move, and he sighs quietly. “Wanda. Come out of there and talk to me, sweetheart.”

 

For a moment, she doesn’t move. And then the blankets shuffle, and her face emerges from the pile. She looks pale and drawn, her eyes red-rimmed and wet. He wonders how long she’s been crying. “Hey,” he says gently. “How are you feeling?”

 

Wanda gives a soft, bitter laugh, sitting up. She’s wearing a US Army t-shirt that Clint is pretty sure she took from Nat, who definitely took it from him. Regardless, it’s too big for her. “How do you think?”

 

“Like I didn’t really need to ask,” Clint admits. “But it seemed like I should.” He reaches out and brushes a few strands of hair off her forehead. “Nat says you’ve been in here all day. Have you eaten anything? Had anything to drink?”

 

She shakes her head. “I am not hungry,” she says, looking down. “Everything tastes like ashes.”

 

Clint winces in sympathy. He remembers that feeling. He’d barely been able to eat for a week after the Battle of New York. “Fair enough,” he says. “But you need to be drinking. What have I told you about crying without hydrating?”

 

“That it will give me a hangover,” Wanda recites. Something like faint humor comes into her eyes. “I thought Laura said that.”

 

He shrugs. “Could be,” he agrees. “So, here’s what I’m thinking. You can sit here and be sad for,” he glances at his watch, “fifteen more minutes. And then we’re gonna get up and go to the mess for something to eat. Something light,” he adds, when she opens her mouth to protest. “And some water. Then we can come back here and watch shitty movies, and tomorrow morning we’ll fly out to the farm and you can spend a few days not having to watch the news or dodge reporters or train.” He raises his eyebrows. “Okay?”

 

Wanda looks hesitant, but then, slowly, nods. “But I can sit here a little longer?” she asks in a small, uncertain voice.

 

“Yeah,” Clint says gently. “You can stay here a little longer.” He pauses. “You want me to stay with you?”

 

Her lower lip trembles, her eyes shining at the corners, and she swallows visibly, nodding. “Yes please,” she whispers.

 

He hates when her voice sounds like that--it reminds him of Lila so much that it breaks his heart. Clint pushes the association as far into the back corner of his mind as he can, and holds out his arms. “C’mere,” he says quietly.

 

Wanda’s face collapses in pain and relief, and she lets him fold her into a hug, her arms around his neck and her hands fisting into the back of his jacket. Her shoulders shake, and Clint strokes her hair gently, letting her cry.

 

It takes longer than fifteen minutes for her tears to stop, but he lets it go. Some things are more important than a timetable, and this is one of them.

 

…

 

Wanda falls asleep curled against his side, and Clint manages to extricate his arm out from under her with practice gained from years of navigating his sleeping children (and to a similar extent, his sleeping wife), slipping carefully out of her room and closing the door gently behind him. The brightness of the hallway after the darkened room makes him blink, and he rubs his eyes, stretching and wincing when his back pops. Old man Barton, he thinks with a wry smile, Natasha’s teasing nickname flickering into his head, and he shakes his head, setting off down the hall towards Natasha’s room.

 

He runs into Steve coming out of the elevator bay, and lifts one hand in a tired wave. “Hey, Cap,” he says. “You turning in?”

 

Steve shakes his head, motioning to the water bottle in his hand. “Heading down to the gym for a run.”

 

Clint stares at him. “Now?” He glances at his watch. “It’s midnight?”

 

Steve shrugs, gives half a sheepish smile. “My brain tends to stay wired,” he says. He looks over Clint’s shoulder, back toward Wanda’s room. “How’s she doing?”

 

“She’ll be alright. A few days out in the sun and dirt with the kids’ll do her good.” Clint pauses. “Also, I’m stealing one of your planes.”

 

Steve snorts. “Nat told me,” he says. “I think technically they’re Stark’s planes.” He grins wryly. “You stealing Nat, too?”

 

Clint narrows his eyes slightly. There’s a thoughtful note in Steve’s voice that seems to be pretending to be more innocent than it really is. Natasha’s made comments before about Steve’s occasional questions about her closeness with Clint and Laura, and Clint’s not dumb enough to think that Rogers is anywhere near as obliviously naive as he pretends to be when he thinks it serves an advantage. “If she’ll take a break,” he says, intentionally vague. “Sun and dirt would be good for her, too.” Still, he knows Steve is under more stress than he shows, so he takes a little pity. “You think you’ll need her for anything urgent? Press appearances or anything?”

 

“No.” Steve looks like he regrets the answer. “No, she probably needs the down time. How long were you thinking?”

 

As long as she’s willing to say, Clint thinks, but he shrugs one shoulder. “Probably not too long. She gets antsy when she doesn’t have anything to shoot.” He nods down the hallway. “Speaking of, I told her I’d check in with her.”

 

“Right. Have a good night, Clint.” Steve starts to turn toward the elevators, and then pauses. “Which guest room did you take?”

 

Shit. Clint pauses. “Uh,” he says. “Same one as last time?”

 

“Funny.” Steve cocks one brow. “Could’ve sworn we were remodeling that wing.”

 

Clint knows when he’s been outmatched. “Caught me, Cap,” he says. “Heading for a slumber party.” He waggles his eyebrows for effect. “Wanna come along? We’re gonna watch _Mean Girls_ , maybe make some popcorn.”

 

Steve rolls his eyes, but his grin is fond. “Goodnight, Clint.”

 

“G’night, Cap.”

 

Nat’s waiting for him when he keys into her room, sitting up in bed with a novel in her hands. She glances up as he closes the door behind him, arching one sculpted brow. “You’re later than I expected,” she comments, putting her book down on her bedside table.

 

“Wanted to stay until Wanda fell asleep, and then I ran into Steve in the hallway.” He kicks off his shoes and flops face-first down onto her bed with a huff. Natasha chuckles, ruffling his hair gently, and he turns his head to look up at her. “Told him we were having a slumber party.”

 

“That’s true enough.” Her face is scrubbed clean of makeup, her hair thrown up into a ponytail, and Clint looks up at her, unable to keep himself from smiling. He thinks she looks great all the time, but he loves her like this, soft and natural and comfortable in a way she rarely lets other people see. She catches his smile, and laughs softly. “You’re so transparent,” she says, poking his nose. He wrinkles it at her. “I can’t believe we let you be a spy.”

 

“To be fair, I didn’t spend all that much time spying. I mostly climbed on stuff and shot people.” He sits up. “We’re gonna fly out in the morning,” he says. “You think you might come?”

 

Natasha picks up his hand, toying with it gently. He’d left his wedding ring on a chain around Laura’s neck, and Natasha runs her forefinger lightly over the slightly lighter patch of skin where the ring usually sits. “You should cover this, if you’re going to wear a ring at home,” she says. “It won’t hide the indent, but it’ll make it less obvious.”

 

It’s an obvious deflection, and Clint doesn’t let her get away with it. “Nat,” he says. “Do you want to come home?”

 

“I don’t know if I should,” she says, looking at his hand, not his face. “It’s a little suspicious, isn’t it? Me going back with you? If we want to keep this quiet…”

 

“Say you’re going for Wanda,” he says. He doesn’t like to push her, but the kids haven’t seen her for a month, and he knows Laura’s getting antsy, too. “It’ll probably look better from a PR standpoint anyway, right? Black Widow taking Scarlet Witch on a girls’ relaxation weekend, that kind of thing?”

 

Natasha gives a startled laugh. “Is that what you think the press says?”

 

He shrugs. “Laura likes to pick up the _Enquirer_ when she goes grocery shopping,” he says. “She says she’s gonna make you a scrapbook.”

 

“I bet.” The smile in Natasha’s voice is soft and amused. “Did she see the one about me apparently mourning your retirement by sleeping with Sam, who cheated on me with Steve?”

 

“You mean the one with the picture of you supposedly crying in Starbucks?” Clint cracks one eye open and looks up at her, grinning. “It’s Laura’s favorite.”

 

Natasha scowls. “I only made that face because I accidentally stabbed my straw into my eye,” she says. Clint barks out a laugh, and she snorts, poking his shoulder. “Like you’ve never done that.”

 

“I don’t have a reputation for being a totally chill super-spy,” he says. He rolls onto his back, shifting up onto the pillows and tugging her down until she rolls her eyes and curls up against him, her head on his chest. He strokes her hair, running his fingertips along the crown of her head until he hits the elastic of her ponytail and then starting again at her forehead. She sighs, a soft, content sound, relaxing against him. It takes a long time for the tension to go completely out of her, and Clint wonders how much she’s been carrying around on her shoulders. “You wanna talk to me?”

 

She doesn’t answer right away, her breathing slow and even. When she speaks, her voice is tinged with worry. “There’s going to be fallout from this,” she says. “We’ve caused damage before, but we’ve never directly caused casualties, not like this.There are going to be political consequences, and I don’t know what they are.”

 

Clint sits with that for a minute. “Are you worried because there are going to be consequences,” he asks slowly, “or because you don’t know what they’re going to be?”

 

Natasha huffs out a soft laugh. “You know me too well,” she says, and then she sighs. “Both, but more of the latter. I don’t like not knowing my variables.”

 

“I know.” Natasha has always liked control. Clint’s pretty sure it’s because she lived so long without any of it. He turns slightly onto his side, touching her chin until she tilts her head up to look at him. “Hey. Whatever comes next, we’ll deal with it, okay? We always do.”

 

“With or without blowing everything to hell?” she asks dryly.

 

He shrugs. “Not sure yet. That’s what makes it fun.” “So,” he says. “You’ll come home?”

 

Natasha’s quiet for a moment, and then she curls one hand into the fabric of his t-shirt. “Yes,” she says. “I’ll come home.”

 

…

 

They fly out in the early hours of the morning, Clint at the controls of their borrowed quinjet, while the rest of the base is still sleeping and quiet, dew glistening on the landscaped grass. Wanda dozes quietly in her seat, the circles beneath her eyes still too dark for Clint’s liking, but Natasha stays awake in the co-pilots seat, and Clint fills her in on everything she’s missed at the farm to keep himself awake, since Nat wouldn’t let him get a coffee from the mess before they leave.

 

“I told you, it’s shit coffee anyway,” she says as they’re flying over Michigan, when Clint complains for the eighth or ninth time.

 

“I know it’s shit coffee,” Clint says grumpily, adjusting their speed slightly to compensate for wind direction. “But shit coffee is better than _no_ coffee, Natasha. What am I gonna do if Laura divorces me because I come back all under-caffeinated and cranky?”

 

“I doubt that’ll be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” Natasha says dryly. “She’s stuck with you through worse.”

 

“Well, yeah, but only because I’m fucking adorable,” Clint mutters. He looks over his shoulder at Wanda, and sighs, taking one hand off the controls and pushing it through his hair. “Jesus. She even looks guilty asleep.”

 

Natasha glances back, and shakes her head. “She’s going to look guilty for a while, Clint,” she says. “You need to let her.”

 

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he grumbles. He knows she’s right, though, and it won’t do Wanda any good for him to push her through her own process. He’d needed his own time to deal with Loki, and that was stuff that had happened without his control--Wanda was in an entirely different boat, and he knows she deserves her grieving time.

 

A thought occurs to him, then, and he swears. Natasha glances at him, concern flickering into her eyes. “What is it?”

 

“I forgot to get bagels,” Clint says, managing to refrain from slamming his face into the controls.

 

Natasha snorts. “Okay,” she says. “Laura might divorce you for that.”

 

Wanda wakes up a few minutes before they land, rubbing her eyes and peering out the window, and Clint feels a curl of warmth grow through his chest when she smiles as she recognizes the landscape outside. She doesn’t smile like that often, and he knows that it’s the comfort she gets at the farm with him and Laura and the kids that puts that look on her face. Go Team Barton, he thinks, flipping a few switches to prep the jet for descent. Even if it’s probably mostly Laura’s doing, he’ll give himself at least a little credit.

 

To his surprise, Laura and the kids are waiting for them on the porch as they make their way up the path to the house. Lila gives a shriek of glee when she spots them, launching herself off the stairs and setting off toward them at a sprint, Cooper quickly overtaking her. They bypass Clint completely--he gives them a wounded look, which they completely ignore--and divide and conquer, Lila leaping up into Wanda’s arms and Cooper flinging his around Natasha’s waist. Laura scoops Nate onto her hip and comes down the steps to meet them, her lips curved in amusement. “I don’t think the kids like me anymore,” he tells her mournfully.

 

“They’re not the only ones,” Laura says, but she kisses his cheek anyway. “Nat texted and said you didn’t bring bagels.”

 

Natasha grins at him over the top of Cooper’s head. Clint scowls at her. “Traitor.”

 

“Tway,” Nate says, and reaches for him.

 

Clint takes him from Laura’s arms with a grin. “This is why you’re my favorite,” he tells him, and blows a raspberry on Nate’s belly while Nate squeals with delight, grabbing Clint’s hair and yanking. “Ow, kid, cut it out.” He shifts Nate onto his hip, looking over at Wanda, who has her eyes closed as she hugs Lila tight, and smiles, resting his cheek against Nate’s.

 

“Alright, Miss Lila, share the love,” Laura says, and Lila giggles, squirming down from Wanda’s arms. Wanda turns to Laura, her expression hesitant, and Laura folds her into an embrace, wrapping her arms around her gently. A shudder goes through Wanda’s shoulders and she tucks her face against Laura’s neck the same way Nate did when he cried, and Laura stroked her hair gently, murmuring reassurances. “You’re alright, honey. You’re home now. We’ve got you.” She opens her eyes, and meets Clint’s gaze over Wanda’s shaking shoulders. “We’re not going anywhere.”

 

…

 

Wanda stays for just under a week, and Clint finds himself wishing it was longer. She gets up early and goes for runs with Clint and Natasha, spends the days outside--working in the garden, helping Clint with the random projects that crop up, holding Nate’s hands as he takes wobbly steps, barefoot on the grass. When the kids come home from school, she plays outside with them, her hair tied back to keep it off her face as she lets them pull her into whatever games they’ve thought up, and even Cooper comes out of the pre-adolescent moodiness that’s become his default. Her eyes lighten a little more each day, the heavy guilt slowly easing back from her shoulders, and Clint begins to think that maybe, if she stayed, it might eventually disappear entirely.

 

He tells Laura that while they’re brushing their teeth, waiting for Natasha to come back from saying goodnight to the kids.

 

“No,” she says around her toothbrush. Clint makes a face at her, and Laura rolls her eyes, spitting toothpaste into the sink. She leans her hip against the counter. “Clint, you’re the one who told me that she needs to fight her own battles.”

 

“I know that,” he says, even if he secretly thinks he might have been trying to convince himself of that more than he’d been trying to convince Laura. “I just...y’know, she seems so happy here, and everything is such a mess, and Nat thinks there’s gonna be some kind of fallout from Lagos, so maybe she’d be better off staying here til it all blows over.”

 

Laura raises her eyebrows. “Maybe she’d be better off?” She echoes. Clint nods. Laura snorts. “Clint Barton,” she says, “if you are actually saying that because you think she’d be better off, and not because you are everyone’s dad and just hate the idea of her out there fighting without you to watch her back, I will eat this toothbrush.”

 

Clint opens his mouth, stares at her for a moment, and then, guiltily, closes it.

 

“I thought so,” Laura says. She rinses her toothbrush and puts it back into the cup, then steps closer to him, taking his hands. “Clint, I love her as much as you do, but whatever we feel for her, she’s not our daughter. We don’t get to make her choices for her.”

 

He slumps back against the counter, but doesn’t pull his hands from hers. “I know that,” he says. “I just…”

 

“I know.” She tiptoes up to press a kiss to his jaw, then pats his cheek gently. “Come on. Bedtime. We have to get up early to see Nat and Wanda off.”

 

He lets her tug him out of the ensuite, just as Natasha comes into the bedroom, Lucky trotting happily at her heels. Despite being a major part of the reason Laura had caved to letting Clint and the kids bring Lucky home in the first place, Natasha has declared herself to be _not_ a dog person. Lucky, in true dog fashion--and thereby endearing himself to Clint forever, even if just being a dog hadn’t done that already--had decided that she would be his favorite person in the entire family, and followed her around like an obedient shadow each time she was home. “All kids, biological and otherwise, are asleep,” she says, plopping down on the bed. Lucky leaps up next to her, planting his butt onto Clint’s pillow.

 

“Aw, dog,” Clint says, dropping down next to him and hauling him into his lap. Lucky, who’s gotten used to this sort of affection, gives Natasha a _see what I have to put up with when you’re not here?_ look, but licks Clint’s chin, and then licks him again more enthusiastically when Clint starts rubbing his belly. He cocks an eyebrow at Natasha. “Biological and otherwise?”

 

“Like you haven’t adopted Wanda in your head,” she says.

 

Laura snickers. “Thank you,” she tells Natasha, and then gives Clint a pointed look. “See?”

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “which one of us wanted to have about a million kids? At least you didn’t have to give birth to this one.”

 

“Three is not a million,” Laura says. He raises his eyebrows at her. He loves Laura with just about every fiber of his being, but she loves babies more than any person he has ever met, with the possible exception of her mother, and it had only been him putting his foot down that kept her from attempting to adopt every kid she’d ever taught with a rough home life. Laura slumps slightly. “Well, okay, fair.” All the same, she smacks Clint’s shoulder gently. “And that crack about people giving birth to other people have better have been because you know I’m far too youthful to have a child her age.”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” he says promptly, because he’s not a _complete_ idiot.

 

Laura chuckles, kissing his shoulder where she’d smacked him, and sits down on the bed, taking hold of one of Lucky’s back paws and wiggling it slightly. He thumps his tail against the blankets at her, and she smiles, looking at Natasha. “You’re all set to head out tomorrow?”

 

“Bright and early,” she says. She gives Clint a sharp look. “And no, Clint, you’re not coming back with us.” They’ve been arguing quietly about it for the past two days, and Natasha had put the final nail in his coffin when she’d gotten Wanda onto her side. “You are terrible at retirement, you know that?”

 

He stretches across the bed and pokes her hip with his toe. “I am trying to _stay active_ , fuck you very much,” he says. She rolls her eyes at him.

 

“Alright, you two, that’s enough.” Laura nudges gently at Lucky. He looks mournfully at her, but climbs obediently off the bed, curling up in his dog bed on the floor. Clint doesn’t know why she bothers; they’re going to be woken up at four a.m. when he hops back onto the bed anyway. “Some of us have to work a normal job tomorrow, which means getting a good night’s sleep without being snarked to death.” She pushes the blankets down, worming her way between Clint and Natasha, and Natasha laughs softly, fondly, laying down beside her and resting her head on Laura’s shoulder. Laura reaches up and tugs firmly on the sleeve of Clint’s t-shirt, and he flops down next to her, slinging an arm across her waist to curl his hand over the curve of Natasha’s hip. Laura makes a soft, contented sound, and Clint reaches back with his free hand to turn off the light.

 

A comfortable silence settles over the room, and Clint closes his eyes, listening to Laura and Natasha’s quiet breathing, already synchronized. Natasha rests one hand on Clint’s forearm where it drapes over Laura’s stomach, stroking her thumb over the back of his wrist, and he smiles despite himself. “You gonna leave your ring?” he mumbles.

 

“Mm,” Natasha says. It’s an affirmation, if a reluctant one. “Not until the morning.”

 

Clint runs his fingers along her arm and down to her hand, tracing the pad of his thumb over the slim band on her finger. She only wears it here, for short enough periods that it doesn’t leave an indent or a tan line. He knows she’d hesitated before wearing it around Wanda, and he’d been so shocked that she’d decided to throw her usually overwhelming caution to the wind and wear it anyway that he’d tugged her into the hall linen closet and kissed her until Laura had sent both of them a text of cranky emojis for ditching her with the kids while they made out.

 

He can’t blame her for leaving it here when she leaves, though--he still does the same. Even though the team knows about the farm, the rest of the compound doesn’t, and the last thing he needs after so many years of successfully keeping his family safe is for a rogue selfie to end up on Twitter and spark a flood of speculation and digging. They’d weathered that storm after Loki and again after the fall of SHIELD, and Clint doesn’t have any interest in doing it again.

 

Natasha’s hand curls around his wrist, and squeezes. “Clint,” she says. “Stop thinking so loud, and go to sleep.”

 

…

 

Natasha’s right. There’s fallout.

 

And it’s bad.

 

Clint’s at the pediatrician’s with Nate when he first hears about the Accords, bouncing him on his lap to quell the crying from what he and Laura are pretty sure is an ear infection and looking up at the TV in the waiting room. For once it’s playing CNN, not _Sesame Street_ , but all gratitude at having grown-up television to watch goes out of him in a punch to the gut when he actually hears what they’re saying.

 

\-- _international news, the United Nations has released a statement detailing the Sokovia Accords, an attempt at regulating super-powered teams such as the Avengers, which have operated without supervision since 2012. While many credit the Avengers with saving the world from extraterrestrial and terrorist threats, others have criticized these individuals for violating sovereign borders and causing massive damage to property and infrastructure, in addition to loss of life. Spearheaded by U.S. Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross and ratified by one hundred and seventeen countries, the Accords have come primarily in response to last month’s incident in Lagos, Nigeria, during which Wanda Maximoff, otherwise known as Scarlet Witch, caused the deaths of--_

 

“Mr. Barton?”

 

Clint snaps his head up. A nurse in pink scrubs, patterned with yellow teddy bears, is smiling pleasantly at him from the entrance to the hallways. “Hi,” she says. “Sorry. I’ve been calling you for a minute or so.”

 

“Sorry,” Clint says. He scoops Nate onto his hip and climbs to his feet, and the floor feels like it barely exists under his feet. “I’m coming.”

 

When he leaves the office forty minutes later, with a sleepily sedated baby and a prescription for an antibiotic tucked into his wallet, there are eight voicemails on his phone. They’re all from Laura, and she’s livid. He buckles Nate into his carseat, and calls her back.

 

“Have you _seen this shit_?” she says when she picks up, her voice high and furious.

 

“Only a bit, on the news,” he says. “How bad is it?”

 

“The Accords would require the Avengers to be controlled by the UN,” she says. “So they can call you in whenever they want, and any Avengers operations would have to be approved by a committee. _And_ it practically classifies anyone with superpowers as a weapon to be deployed, not as an actual person, they’re talking about Wanda like she’s a time bomb, and you should _hear_ what they’re saying about Banner and Thor--”

 

“Laura,” Clint interrupts. “Take a breath, baby.”

 

She does. It doesn’t sound very relaxing. When she speaks again, though, she does sound slightly calmer. “I talked to my father,” she says. “He knows Secretary Ross from West Point. He says there’s no way that these Accords just came together this quickly. Even with what happened in Lagos, these must have been in the works for years behind the scenes.”

 

Clint narrows his eyes. He’s come up against Ross a few times during his career, and shares Laura’s father’s opinion of him--namely, that he’s a grade-A asshole with too much power and not enough morals. “What happens if they don’t sign?”

 

“You mean if _you_ don’t sign?”

 

He frowns. “What?”

 

“Yeah,” Laura says. “Your name’s on it.”

 

“I’m retired,” he says, half because it’s mostly true, and half just out of confusion.

 

“Yes, Clint, I’m aware, but someone clearly _isn’t_ , because Christine Everhart just namedropped you on fucking CNN!”

 

“Mom!” Cooper’s surprised yell comes through the line. “You have to put a dollar in the swear jar!”

 

Despite his mounting alarm about the news, Clint snorts at that. Laura only swears like this when she’s seriously angry, and Clint’s put _way_ more money in that stupid jar than she has.

 

Laura takes an audible breath. “You’re right, Coop,” she says, with clearly forced calm. “Go bring me my purse, okay?” She’s quiet for a moment, and then says, “We need to figure out what to do about this. People are going to come looking for you.”

 

Clint drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “They’ll send Nat,” he says slowly.

 

“How do you know?”

 

He shrugs. “It’s their only option. Not like I left them a forwarding address.” He glances in the rear-view mirror at Nate, still asleep, drooling around his pacifier. A pang of protectiveness shoots through him, and he flexes his fingers around the wheel. “What did they say would happen if we don’t sign?”

 

“Forced retirement,” Laura says bitterly.

 

“I’m hearing an ‘ _or else_.’”

 

“Probably.”

 

“Or else what?”

 

“They didn’t say. Not on the news, anyway.” She’s quiet for a moment. “What are you going to do?”

 

Clint wishes he wasn’t driving, so that he could close his eyes and think. Instead, he takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, rolls down the window so that the warm spring air brushes against his skin. “What do you want me to do?”

 

Laura doesn’t answer right away, and when she does, her voice is soft. “I trust you, Clint,” she says. She’s quiet, but calmer than she’s sounded since she picked up the phone. “I want you to do what you think is right.”

 

…

 

Natasha shows up a week later, grim-faced.

 

Some of the grimness fades when the kids spot her, because how could it not--she melts when Lila flings her arms around her, like she always does, and nuzzles her face into Nate’s belly when Laura plops the baby into her arms. She settles Nate onto her hip and wraps an arm around Cooper’s shoulders, tossing her duffel bag unceremoniously at Clint and letting the kids drag her back to the house, chattering non-stop.

 

“Told you she’d be here before the week was out,” Clint mutters to Laura, as they follow the rest of the family up the path. “You owe me five bucks.”

 

Laura makes a face at him, and Clint slings an arm around her shoulders, presses a kiss to her temple. “We’re okay,” he says quietly, and she sighs.

 

“I’m not here just to see you,” Natasha says later that night, when the kids are in bed and the three of them are sitting around the table. She looks calm, quiet, and to anyone who didn’t know her, she would seem utterly at ease. Clint _does_ know her, maybe better than anyone, and so he knows that her grip around her mug is to hide the trembling in her fingers. He also knows that there’s bourbon spiking her lemon tea, and that she only combines those when she’s nervous.

 

“We know,” Laura says. Her eyes are soft with the calm that Natasha is trying to project, but hers is genuine, and Clint’s glad of it--one of them has to have their shit together, and Laura has always balanced them out. “It’s been all over the news.”

 

Natasha purses her lips, looking at Clint. He holds her gaze, flexing his hands around his own mug, which is more liquor than coffee. Natasha’s already made her position on the Accords public, he knows that she’ll be going to Vienna for the signing as the official Avengers representative, but if the look on her face is any indication, it’s not out of any great passion for the cause. She sighs. “You won’t sign,” she says. “Will you.”

 

Clint spreads his hands. “Did you really think I would?” He manages a wry smile. “You know how I feel about other people calling my shots, Nat.”

 

And the thing is, she does know; he knows she does. He’s hated having someone else telling him who to shoot since he was twelve and just learning to pull a bow and aim it at a person, and since everything that went down with Loki, the idea of somebody he doesn’t know inside and out giving him orders makes his skin crawl.

 

Natasha doesn’t drop her gaze. “You did it with SHIELD,” she says.

 

Clint’s blood goes cold. He curls his hands into fists, pushing himself half to his feet, not sure where he’s going from there, but Laura puts a firm hand on his wrist. He looks down at her, and she holds his gaze steadily until he sits down, exhaling heavily.

 

“Clint’s right,” Laura says quietly. They’d spent the last week talking about this, and the yelling and fury--very little of it, thankfully, directed at him--has finally given way to calm. “It would be one thing if they gave you a liaison of some kind, or gave you all a say in how this would go, but like this?” She presses her lips together, her fingers tightening around Clint’s wrist, and then she seems to force herself to relax, shaking her head. “It’s bad enough that the world turned you into weapons. No one else should be able to use you.”

 

Natasha scowls. “It’s the United Nations, Laura,” she says, frustration clear in her voice. “Not Hydra. You telling me you don’t trust the UN?”

 

This from the woman who dumped all of SHIELD’s secure files onto the internet because government bodies are fucking untrustworthy, Clint thinks. Out loud, he says, “Come on, Nat. You’re telling me you do?”

 

Natasha opens her mouth, and then closes it. Clint doesn’t say, _ha, gotcha_ , because he’s trying to be the bigger man here, but it’s hard not to. Natasha shakes her head. “It’s the right thing to do, Clint. We need the oversight.”

 

“Seriously, Natasha?” He can’t keep the disbelief from his voice. No way in hell is she doing this because she believes in government oversight. That’s not who Natasha is. Doing whatever it takes to achieve a mission objective, though...He sighs. That’s exactly who she is. Natasha doesn’t believe in much, but she believes in the Avengers. “You really want to tell me you believe in this? That you’d sign this thing if there was any other way to keep the team together?”

 

“Yes,” she says. She holds his gaze, but there’s uncertainty in her eyes, and he finds himself narrowing his, suspicious. Her throat works as she swallows. “I do.” She bites her lips, then, and turns to Laura. “You’re okay with this? Him not signing?”

 

Laura looks almost surprised to have been asked. She shouldn’t, Clint thinks; if Laura had told him to sign, made it two against one, he would have. But she shakes her head, laces her fingers through Clint’s. “I know who I married,” she says. She’s holding Clint’s hand, but she’s looking at Natasha, a silent remember that she married them both, that she knows what to expect from them--and that she loves them anyway.

 

Natasha looks at her for a few moments more, her eyes softer than when she’d looked at Clint, and she sighs, a long, slow exhale. “What do you want me to tell Cap?”

 

“Your choice.” Clint rests one hand on the table, palm up, and Natasha threads her fingers through his. “I trust you. Tell him whatever you want.” She laughs softly, without humor, and he lifts her hand up, presses his lips to her knuckles. Her smile softens, and he looks up at her through his lashes. “Do you have to leave tonight?”

 

Natasha lifts her other hand, touches her fingertips to his cheek. “No,” she murmurs. “Tonight, I’ll stay.”

 

…

 

Three days later, Laura’s yelling his name from downstairs, and they’re back in front of the television, staring wide-eyed and horrified at the news.

 

This time, Clint doesn’t waste time thinking about time zones before he calls Natasha.

 

She picks up immediately. “I’m fine,” she says, without preamble.

 

“Thank God,” he says, and then, “Jesus _fuck_ , Nat. The UN?”

 

“Yeah.” She gives an exhausted laugh. “God. It’s a mess, Clint. It’s such a mess.” She takes a shuddering breath. “They’re saying it’s Barnes.”

 

Clint sits heavily down on the couch. Laura gives him an alarmed look, sitting down next to him. “Bucky Barnes?”

 

“Yes.” There’s an audible swallow. “Steve’s going to go after him.”

 

Laura makes a frustrated gesture at the phone. “Nat, I’m putting you on speaker,” he says, and presses the button. “Say again?”

 

“Hi, Laura,” Natasha says, her voice a little gentler. “Steve’s going to try and get to Barnes before the authorities do.”

 

“Why would he do that?” Laura asks, frowning. “If Barnes attacked you…”

 

“Who knows why that idiot does anything?” Natasha huffs. She falls silent, and Clint can picture her taking slow, quiet breaths. “He’s going to make things worse,” she whispers. “Clint, this is what I was trying to avoid. If he’d signed, then him going after Barnes would be legit, but the way it is now…” She breathes out heavily. “It’s going to get so much worse.”

 

It gets worse. It gets worse _fast_. And thirty-six hours of constant news coverage and more lectures from his mother-in-law than he thinks are really reasonable, he gets a call from an encrypted line.

 

At this point, it’s either Steve or Tony. He picks up. “No,” he says, flatly.

 

“Clint.” Steve, then. He sounds exhausted.

 

“ _No_ , Cap,” Clint says. He closes the door to the office, starts pacing--he can’t sit still when he’s on the phone. “Whatever it is, I’m not getting involved in this shitshow. I’ve got kids to look after. Everything’s already on high alert.” He and Laura have spent the last day and a half planning to get the kids out of town, getting them away from the farm--not because he’s worried it’s not secure, but because at this point, he’s not ready to take any chances. They’ve found a lake resort out near Chicago. Cooper’s talking about learning how to water-ski. They’ve already stocked up on sunscreen. “I’m out. I’m retired.”

 

“Clint,” Steve says again. “It’s Wanda.”

 

Clint stills. “What about her?”

 

“Tony has her confined to the compound.” Steve’s voice is tight with barely-reined anger. “Ross’s orders, apparently--if she doesn’t sign, she’s too much of a threat to be out in the open. He’s got Vision ‘keeping her company.’”

 

Clint forces himself to relax his grip on his phone so that he doesn’t crack it. “Just Vision?”

 

“She doesn’t deserve to be a prisoner in her home,” Steve says.

 

He takes a breath. “Who’s your source on this?”

 

“Stark.” Steve’s quiet for a moment. “Clint, she’s at the compound now, but if Ross spooks--”

 

“He’ll take her,” Clint finishes. He doesn’t need to know where Ross’ll take her next. He doesn’t _want_ to know. He rubs her forehead. “Laura’s gonna kill me,” he mutters. “She’s gonna kill me for this, Rogers. I was supposed to be out.”

 

“I know, Clint. I’m sorry.” To his credit, he sounds like he means it. “I can talk to her?”

 

Clint snorts. “Trust me, Cap,” he says. “That will _not_ help.” He sighs. “Text me your coordinates,” he says. “I’ll let you know when I’m en route.”

 

He ends the call and closes his eyes, letting his hand drop to his side. “Shit,” he says. He hasn’t even packed his weapons, and he’s already exhausted.

 

“Clint?”

 

He turns. Laura’s in the doorway, her expression caught somewhere between exasperation and concern. “Hey,” he says, weakly.

 

Laura narrows her eyes. “En route?” she says.

 

Clint swallows. “Laura,” he begins carefully. “I can explain.”

 

“No,” she says. She crosses her arms. “Clint, it’s bad enough that Natasha’s wrapped up in this crap, we can’t--”

 

“Laura, they’ve got Wanda.”

  
She stops mid-rant. Her arms drop, and her face changes, her eyes flooding with concern. “What?”

 

He pockets his phone, crosses the room to her. “Stark’s got her on house arrest, but Steve’s worried that Ross is gonna come for her.”

 

“He would.” Laura’s voice trembles. She exhales slowly. “I’ve met Ross before. He’d come for her, if he thought it would give him an advantage.” She closes her eyes for a moment, and then looks up at him, reaching both hands up to cup his face. “Clint,” she says. “You have to go get her.”

 

It’s not what he’s expecting, not even close. “Laur,” he says. Not a protest, just uncertain. He rests his hands on her hips. “If I do this--” He swallows. “It’s not Avenging. It’s not sanctioned.”

 

“I know.” She swallows visibly, stroking one thumb along his cheekbone. “But it’s Wanda.”

 

She says it softly, but he hears the same depth of emotion in her voice that he feels settling in his gut.

 

Wanda’s not supposed to be theirs, but she is--she’s been theirs since the first time Clint brought her back to the farm, a year ago, a wreck of grief and survivor’s guilt and pain. Clint can no more leave her behind bars--glass and chrome bars, but bars nonetheless--than he could Lila or Cooper or Nate.

 

“I’ll get her,” Clint says. He doesn’t mean for it to come out a promise, but it does. “I’ll bring her home safe.”

 

“Good.” Laura strokes his cheeks again, and then pulls him into a hug. Clint clings to her, burying his face in her shoulder, and she holds him tight.

 

They stand there for a long time, holding each other, fierce. Clint’s head is spinning, flight trajectories and weapons lists and frantic planning clashing together with the hotel reservations and highway maps he and Laura have been looking at for the last day, and he shudders, muffling an exhausted, half-panicked laugh into Laura’s shoulder.

 

She lifts her head, eyes damp, and looks at him. “What?”

 

Clint gives her a weak smile. “What the hell am I going to tell the kids?”

 

Laura’s lips part, worry flickering into her eyes, and she takes a deep breath. She leans forward, resting her forehead against his. “We’ll figure it out,” she promises. “Together.”

 

Clint pulls her back against him, closing his eyes. He inhales the scent of her hair, and tries to memorize it.

 

This is home, and he’s not supposed to have to leave it. He’s supposed to be done.

 

But he has work to do.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM ALREADY SORRY.
> 
> Come yell at me [on tumblr](http://geniusorinsanity.tumblr.com).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELP APPARENTLY I AM TERRIBLE AT UPDATING SORRY KIDS. 
> 
> In my defense, I moved in June? So like, that took a lot of time.
> 
> Please note the change in the number of chapters. Originally this was going to be about 20k words total, but it's looking to be closer to 40k (oops) soooo I'm breaking it up a bit, for your sake as well as mine.

**then**

 

“How do you do it?” Wanda asked, once she’d picked herself up off the ground and come back to sit beside him on the porch steps, brushing the grass off her clothing.

 

Clint glanced at her. “Do what?”

 

“Keep fighting.” Wanda waved one hand, gesturing at the open farmland around them, bathed in streaks of gold and rose from the setting sun. “Keep fighting, when you have so much to lose.”

 

“Ah.” Clint took a sip of his beer, thinking. Wanda waited, watching him quietly, her hands loose in her lap. “Having so much to lose is why I keep fighting,” he said, finally, lowering his bottle and letting it dangle between his fingers. “This is what I fight for.”

 

“You’re not worried that--”

 

She broke off, biting her lip. Clint raised an eyebrow. “Not worried that what?”

 

Wanda’s lips thinned, and then she said, softly, “You’re not worried that you’ll leave them behind?”

 

Clint shrugged. “Of course I am. I worry every time I leave.” He looked out over the land, at the toys strewn across the yard, left there from the games Cooper and Lila had played with Wanda that afternoon, at Nate’s stroller, still parked by the porch. “But they know that everything I do, I do for my family.”

 

Wanda followed his gaze, out over the lawn, and then looked back at him. “And that’s enough? To--to get you through it? For you?” She swallows. “For them?”

 

Clint smiled, as much as he could manage. “That’s what they tell me.”

 

**now**

 

In the morning, he tells the kids.

 

They flip out.

 

“Dad, you _promised_!” Cooper yells, shooting up from the breakfast table, slamming his spoon down as he goes. “You said you weren’t doing Avengers stuff anymore! You _said_!”

 

“Cooper,” Laura says, a little sharply. She has Nate on her hip at the kitchen counter, pouring a mug of coffee. She’d sloshed some over the side of her mug when Cooper had leapt to his feet, fortunately missing her hand, but her expression is still stern. “Lower your voice, please.”

 

Cooper ignores her, and glares at Clint. Any other time, he’d almost be amused that somehow Cooper’s angry face has emerged as a perfect blend of Nat and Laura, but right now, Clint’s just exhausted, and pissed at himself for disappointing his kids. Again. “Coop,” Clint says, carefully keeping his voice calm. “I understand you’re mad, and we can talk about this, but you know you aren’t allowed to yell like that. Especially not around your brother.”

 

The big brother card is a low blow, but it works. Cooper sits down, still glowering, but quietly now. “Dad,” he says. “You said you were _done_.”

 

In her seat next to Clint, Lila sniffles wetly. “Oh, baby,” Clint sighs. He puts his coffee cup down and holds an arm out to her, and she crawls off her chair and into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face against his chest. He kisses her temple, and looks at Cooper. “You’re right,” he says, and means it. “I did say I was done. And I thought that I was. But some stuff has come up that I didn’t--that none of us expected.” He shifts Lila on his lap slightly. “I’d never lie to you on purpose, Coop,” he says quietly. “I hope you know that.”

 

Cooper chews his bottom lip, knuckles white where he’s clutching his spoon, but slowly, slowly, some of the tension leaves his shoulders, the anger on his face giving way to frustration, and then resignation. “I know,” he says. “But you…” His lower lip trembles. “You _said_.”

 

“I know, buddy,” Clint says, tiredly. “And I meant it when I said it.”

 

Laura finishes cleaning her spilled coffee and joins them at the table, settling Nate on her lap. “Cooper,” she says quietly. Cooper looks at her. “Is this about what you told me? About the kids at school?”

 

Clint looks sharply at her. “What kids at school?”

 

Cooper fidgets in his chair for a few moments, and then his shoulders slump and he looks helplessly up at Clint. “Just some of the kids in my class,” he mumbles. “They said--” He bites down on his lip. “They said all the Avengers are gonna go to jail. That none of you are heroes anymore except for Iron Man and War Machine and Vision and everybody else is just bad guys.”

 

Clint narrows his eyes slightly at Laura, and she gives him a firm _not now_ shake of her head. He grits his teeth for a moment, and then sighs. “Coop,” he says. “It’s not--it’s not a good-guy, bad-guy kind of thing. It’s more complicated than that.”

 

“They said you were gonna go to _jail_ ,” Cooper insists, and then he breaks off, looking anxious. “ _Are_ you gonna go to jail? If you go?”

 

Laura’s knuckles whiten around the handle of her mug. “I already talked to the teacher,” she says, a little tightly.

 

“I don’t think that’s the _point_ ,” Clint says, but he reels himself back in, focuses on Cooper, who’s still looking at him with Laura’s wide brown eyes, watery at the corners. “Sweetheart,” he says softly. “The stuff that’s going on right now, with the Avengers--it _is_ complicated. It’s tough. And hey, I--I really hope that I don’t go to jail.” He tries to smile, but Cooper doesn’t smile back, and Lila sniffs wetly against his neck. Clint sighs. “Do you remember what we talked about a few weeks ago? About Wanda, and people getting hurt?”

 

Cooper nods. “You said you weren’t part of that,” he says, almost defensive.

 

“I know I did. But some stuff has changed, and...Well, now I’m part of it.” He looks at Laura, a little helplessly, but she says nothing, just bounces Nate gently on her lap, her cheek resting gently against the crown of his head. “Listen,” he says, changing tactics, going for what’s _true_ , not what’s simple. “What do I always say is the most important part of my job as your dad, Coop?”

 

Cooper drops his head and looks sullenly into his cereal bowl for a few moments, chewing his lip. “To keep us safe,” he mumbles. “To protect us.”

 

“Exactly,” Clint says gently. “The first time Wanda came here, I told her that I was going to do that for her, too. And right now, she needs me.”

 

Lila lifts her head from his neck, wiping at her eyes. “Is she hurt?”

 

Clint shakes his head. “No, baby. She’s just…” He glances at Laura, but she just inclines her head slightly, deferring to him, her expression calm, trusting. “She just needs some help right now.”

 

“What about all the other Avengers?” Cooper demands. “Can’t they help?”

 

“Not this time.” He rubs Lila’s back gently while he tries to figure out what to say next. “Coop...Some of what the kids in your class said was true. There are some people who don’t want the Avengers to be working anymore. Most of the rest of the team are--they can’t help right now.” He takes a careful breath. “That leaves me.”

 

Cooper’s lip is going red where he’s been chewing it, and Clint knows he’s trying not to cry. There’s a lump in his throat, too, and he wishes more than anything that he could tell Cooper that he hates this, too; that there’s nowhere he’d rather be than right here.

 

But he can’t throw Wanda under the bus, either. He owes her a debt, but even if he didn’t, he’d made her a promise. He looks at Cooper, tries to channel a calm he doesn’t feel into his expression. “Do you understand?”

 

Slowly, clearly unhappily, Cooper nods. “But I don’t _want_ you to,” he whispers, his voice breaking.

 

Clint’s heart clenches in his chest, and he suddenly, fiercely, _hates_ Stark for this, for making him leave his kids, for putting that look on his son’s face. He pushes the feeling down, tries to remember that Stark, in his weird, twisted way, probably thinks he’s doing the right thing--for Wanda, for all of them. He takes a slow breath, shifts Lila to one knee, and then holds out his other arm. Cooper’s face crumples, and for all he insists that he’s ten now, too old for stuff like this, he pushes away from the table and all but crawls into Clint’s lap, burying his face in Clint’s neck. “I know, sweetheart,” Clint says, tucking an arm around him. He meets Laura’s eyes over Cooper’s head and sees them shining, wet and bright at the corners. He swallows hard, and when he speaks, his voice comes out in a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

 

Cooper doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t let go.

 

…

 

Laura calls the kids--and herself--out of school for the day. It’s an extra layer of stress, having the kids underfoot while he tries to plan a one-man assault on one of the most secure and tech-advanced paramilitary compounds on the planet, but Clint finds himself oddly grateful for it. Lila and Cooper curl up in the study while he works, playing quietly, their voices a soft murmur as he goes over blueprints, maps out entrances and exits, figures out which garages he can blow up and which ones he can’t because Nat keeps her cars there.

 

He wonders, twirling a pencil in his fingers, if he could persuade her to part with one of the Ferraris. She only ever drives them when she wants to piss Steve off. And they burn _really_ nicely.

 

Mostly on a whim--it’s been a long day--he runs through a few calculations, just to see if it might be worth it. It isn’t.

 

Steve texts a few more times throughout the day with more tac information, the occasional extra favor request ( ** _transit germany to siberia. can u help?_** Clint spends ten minutes banging his forehead against his desk before typing back **_fuck you but also yes i can_** ), and updates on their position. Almost every message comes from a new number, Clint notes with a hint of pride. Seems like all the lectures he and Nat gave about communication while on the run finally sank in. Clint’s gone through half a dozen burner phones in the last three hours getting in touch with old contacts, and he’s already starting to wonder if he should run out to get another handful.

 

The fifth time he comes back in from the porch after a call and tosses an old flip phone onto the kitchen counter, Laura raises a curious eyebrow at him. “Who was that one?”

 

Clint thinks for a moment before answering. “Arms smuggler,” he says finally. “Based in France.”

 

Laura’s other eyebrow drifts up as well. “Do I want to know why you know arms smugglers?”

 

Clint refills his coffee mug from the carafe on the warming plate, taking a thoughtful sip. “It’s useful,” he says. “Better to know one and not need them than to have to get a bunch of advanced weapons tech across international borders and be shit out of luck.”

 

Laura rests her elbows on the counter, looking at him with worried eyes. “This is different,” she says quietly. “This feels different.”

 

He mirrors her posture, putting his mug down so he can take both her hands. “It is different,” he admits. “I’m…” He hesitates, running his thumbs over the delicate tendons in her wrists, soothing himself with the steady beat of her pulse. “I haven’t been outside the law for a long time. I can’t say it’s a feeling I missed.”

 

“But you still have all your old contacts,” Laura says. “From before SHIELD.”

 

It’s not a question. “I don’t like burning bridges,” he says simply. “Or making enemies where I don’t have to.”

 

Laura looks at him calmly. “And that’s it?”

 

Caught. He shrugs, and smiles, a little sheepish. “Yeah, well. Maybe it’s the chronic foster kid in me, but...There was always the possibility SHIELD wouldn’t work out, and I’d be back in the wind. Didn’t want to wipe out my network, just in case. But you never know when you might need a favor or a contact, y’know? Some of those guys got me out of some scrapes, even when SHIELD was in the picture.”

 

Never mind that he’s calling in more favors today than he has in years. If he gets out of this shitstorm in one piece, he doesn’t even want to think about what he might be on the hook for.

 

Laura’s quiet for a moment, her gaze resting on his hands, curled gently around hers. “We haven’t talked about…” Her throat works as she swallows. “About what happens if this goes wrong.”

 

He frowns. “We usually don’t,” he says, a little uncertain at what she’s getting at. “Not like any of the paperwork’s changed.”

 

“That’s not what I mean,” Laura says, her voice tight. “I’m not talking about you ending up dead, I’m talking about you ending up in some horrible hole somewhere, with your name being smeared on every television station in the country.” Clint flinches without being quite sure why, and Laura’s expression softens. “I’m sorry, love,” she says. “But I’ve been talking to my dad, and he’s...He’s really worried about what Ross wants to do with you guys. He’s talking about the Crossmore, Guantanamo--the _Raft_ , for God’s sake. And Cooper’s already hearing things in school, and I don’t--”

 

She takes a breath. “It’s a small town,” she says softly. “And the reason we’ve been safe for so long is that people either haven’t put the dots together, or they respect us--our family--enough not to sell us out to a tabloid. But they’re calling _Captain America_ a terrorist, Clint.” Her voice trembles. “How long are a bunch of Bartons going to fly under the radar?”

 

Clint’s throat goes tight, and he carefully unwraps his fingers from Laura’s before he accidentally squeezes down. The _last_ thing he wants is to leave her with marks like that on her skin. “You haven’t broken any laws,” he says. “Government’s got no legal recourse against you.” He takes a careful breath. “As for extra-legal…” He picks up his coffee mug again, just to have something to hold, to ground him. “If you can, you call Nat,” he says, feeling a little calmer, now, with the ceramic touching his skin. “And if you can’t...well. I’m gonna leave you a phone. It’s got a number in it. If something happens to me or Nat, and you think there’s a chance you’re not safe...You call it.”

 

Laura narrows her eyes. “Whose number is it?”

 

“A guy I used to work with,” Clint says. He’s being vague. On purpose. He’s about ninety percent sure that if Laura does end up having to call him and figures out who he is, she will almost certainly break Clint out of whatever prison he’s in just so she can kill him herself. “His name’s Frank. He’ll keep you safe.”

 

“Frank,” she echoes, doubt audible in her voice. “You want me to trust my life--our _children’s_ lives--to some guy I’ve never met named _Frank_?”

 

Yeah, Clint figures, that’s fair. “I can’t tell you much more than that,” he says. “Part of the deal I made with him, in case you don’t end up calling. But he’s--he’s a good man, Laur. He’ll keep you safe.” She doesn’t look convinced. “I mean it. He’d die before he let something happen to you or the kids. And not just because he owes me.”

 

Laura’s expression doesn’t waver. “Die? Or kill?”

 

She’s pushing, and he knows she’s pushing. He doesn’t rise to it. “Both,” he says quietly, because Frank Castle's nothing if not a deadly son-of-a-bitch with a poor sense of self-preservation. “But he’ll kill first. And if someone comes for your or the kids, I prefer it that way.”

 

Laura bites her lip, and then looks down at her hands, curled together on the countertop. “I hate this,” she whispers. “I know why you’re going. I know you have to. But God, Clint, I _hate_ it.”

 

Clint’s words die in his throat, and he swallows hard, putting his mug down. He steps around the counter and puts his arms around her, resting his cheek against her hair. “You say the word, and I stay,” he murmurs, and means it, even if he’ll hate himself forever for leaving Wanda in a glorified cage. “You know that.”

 

Laura muffles a damp laugh into his shoulder, lifting her head to look at him. “And leave Wanda behind?” She shakes her head. “No. You have to go. I just…” She drops her forehead to rest against his chest. “Just come home,” she says, her voice very small. “Please?”

 

 _Don’t make promises you can’t keep_ , Natasha’s voice warns in the back of his mind. Clint closes his eyes. “As soon as I can,” he says, “I will.”

 

…

 

Despite the morning’s tension, the kids seem too emotionally exhausted to put up a fight at bedtime, clingier than usual, but not reluctant. Clint ends up in Cooper’s bed with Lila snuggled against one side and Cooper pressed into the other, reading quietly to them from _Winnie the Pooh_ \--Cooper’s choice, even though he’s been claiming to be too old for it for years. Laura stays with them, sitting at the foot of the bed with Nate dozing in her arms, watching them with misting eyes and taking the occasional photo on her phone when she thinks Clint isn’t watching.

  
He lets her, and wonders if it’s worth it to ask her to send them to him.

 

As soon as the thought drifts through his head, he has to keep himself from flinching and dislodging Lila and Cooper from his shoulders.

 

When did he start working under the assumption that he wouldn’t be coming home?

 

He keeps reading, long after the kids have gone sleep-heavy against his sides, unwilling to stop. He wants the world to freeze like this, to crystalize this moment of softness before it all goes to hell. He wonders, chest aching and throat tight, how long it’ll be before he’s back here again.

 

Finally, Laura shifts Nate in her arms and murmurs, “Clint.”

 

Clint swallows the lump in his throat. “Yeah.” He closes the book-- _“Promise me you’ll never forget me because if I thought you would, I’d never leave.”_ \--and lets it drop the few inches to the bedside table, gingerly working his arm out from under Cooper’s shoulder, careful not to wake him. Laura climbs quietly off the end of the bed, and Clint gathers Lila into his arms, carrying her across the hall and tucking her gently into her own bed. Brushing her hair back from her forehead, he spends a few moments just sitting there, watching her face, slack and peaceful. She looks like Laura in miniature, all of the mischief of his own expressions smoothed off her face when she sleeps. He shakes his head, torn between amusement and a bit of wistfulness, and bends down to kiss her forehead. “Love you, baby girl,” he murmurs.

 

She curls her arm more tightly around her wolf, and he smiles. Barton protectiveness. Maybe she got a few things from him after all.

 

Laura’s waiting for him in their bedroom, sitting cross-legged on the bed and stroking the soft fur on Lucky’s head. Lucky thumps his tail against the bedspread when Clint comes in, and Laura glances up at him. “Still asleep?”

 

“Out like a pair of flannel-wrapped lights.” He sits down next to her. Lucky rolls onto his back and drops his head hopefully into Clint’s lap. Clint smiles, reaching down to rub his belly fondly, and Lucky pants happily. “Nate?”

 

“I put him down a few minutes ago.”

 

Clint nods, focusing on the sensation of Lucky’s fur under his arm. As if sensing the slight tension in the room, Lucky whines softly, lifting his head and licking Clint’s chin. Clint chuckles, bending down and kissing his nose, and Lucky responds by enthusiastically slobbering all over Clint’s face.

 

Laura makes a face. “Gross,” she says, but Clint hears a real smile in her voice. “You’d better wash your face before bed if you expect me to kiss it goodnight, Hawkeye.”

 

He laughs, gently shoving Lucky off his lap and getting to his feet. He bends to kiss Laura, just to see what she’ll do, and she grabs a pillow and hits him with it. “ _Face_ ,” she says sternly.

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Clint says, making one more attempt--and getting another pillow to the face for his trouble--before heading to the bathroom to wash up.

 

Laura joins him while he’s brushing his teeth, and they spend a few more minutes like it’s any other night, crowding each other around the sink even though there’s plenty of room, and pretending to fight over mouthwash. Laura’s eyes are warm by the time she curls her fingers into the hem of Clint’s t-shirt and tugs him back to the bedroom.

 

When she pushes him down onto the bed and settles herself onto his lap, though, he can see the tension settling back into her shoulders, the slight tremble in her fingertips. “Hey,” he says, keeping his tone completely serious, and she looks at him uncertainly. He cocks an eyebrow. “D’you think they get conjugal visits in all those prisons?”

 

The serious expression that had started to furrow her brow collapses in a startled giggle, and she drops her head onto his shoulder. “ _Clint_.”

 

He grins, only half apologetic, resting his hands on her hips. “Sorry.”

 

She lifts her head, rolling her eyes. “No, you’re not.”

 

“No, I’m not,” he agrees. He leans up to kiss her chin. “But I wanted to see your smile.”

 

Laura’s eyes soften. She cups his face in her hands, stroking her thumbs over his cheekbones. “I love you,” she says, fond and quiet. “No matter what happens next--whether you come home in two days with Wanda or--or not. I wouldn’t trade you for the world.”

 

Her fingers are soft against his skin. He closes his eyes, committing the touch to memory. “I know. I love you, too.”

 

She touches his chin, and he looks up at her. For a moment, she just holds his gaze, and he wonders if she’s memorizing his face as much as he’s memorizing hers.

 

And then she kisses him, and he lets himself stop thinking.

 

After twenty years, they know each other’s bodies by heart, but Clint still marvels at the soft lines of Laura’s limbs, the easy, comfortable way she folds herself around him. She’s even more his opposite than Natasha, all smoothness and ease, her hands soft and uncalloused where she touches him, the only scar marring her skin the tiny mark from the appendectomy she’d gotten before they were married. It’s pale and stretched now, barely visible, but he kisses it anyway as he makes his way down her body, Laura’s fingers threading through his hair. He kisses her lower belly, too, still amazed that Laura’s slim, gentle body has carried and birthed three children, and she huffs a breathless laugh when he traces his fingertips over the stretch marks on her skin. “Clint,” she says, and she’s smiling, but there’s a faint quiver in her voice.

 

Clint lifts his head, turning his face to kiss her palm. “Yeah?”

 

Laura runs her thumb over his cheekbone--softly, once, and then firmer. Then she nudges gently at his head, directing him down, and Clint grins against her skin.

 

She’s shaking and clinging to him by the time he works his way back up his body, her nails digging into his shoulders. He kisses the side of her neck, and Laura wraps her legs around her waist, reaching between them to guide him inside her. The air leaves his lungs in a rush, and he ducks his head down, pressing his forehead into the crook of her neck as she trembles around him.

 

Her nails are sharp in his skin, and he hopes, wildly, that they’ll leave marks.

 

“Clint,” she says, and he picks his head up, looks at her. Her eyes are shining, and she runs her fingers through his hair, draws him down to kiss her. When they part, she’s breathless, and he’s shaking. She looks like she wants to say more, but she just swallows, and wraps her arms around his neck. “Don’t stop.”

 

He doesn’t.

 

…

 

Twenty hours later, Clint hauls himself through another three feet of air shaft, and then settles down on his stomach, worming an allen wrench out of his thigh holster and setting to work on the screws holding the metal plate in place over a kitchen vent.

 

(If he wasn’t before, he’s now entirely convinced that Tony didn’t read any of the security reviews he and Nat did on the Avengers compound. Not only are the air vents big enough to crawl through--and Clint’s _not_ a small guy--but he’s opening up the grate with a tool he bought for $4 at IKEA. It’s a wonder any of them are still alive.)

 

In the distance, he can hear the sound of very carefully timed and planted explosions. Clint grins to himself, still working on the screws. He doesn’t get to play with ammunitions as much as he used to, and a few controlled explosions are always fun.

 

Especially when he gets to blow up a few of Tony’s extra cars, just to be a dick. Clint gets the last screw out, and sets it aside. Serves him right for putting Wanda on house arrest, ‘for her protection’ or not.

 

He moves the grate aside, peering down into the kitchen in time to see Vision blur through the wall to go investigate Clint’s very pointedly placed distraction. Good, Clint thinks. He knows Vision isn’t a bad guy--for a given definition of _guy_ , but whatever it is, he’d lifted Mjolnir, and that’s not nothing--but something about the way he looks at Wanda rubs Clint the wrong way. It’s not _possessive_ , not really, but there’s a disregard for boundaries, a sense of presumed entitlement around her that sets Clint’s teeth on edge.

 

He’s not confident that the controlled burns going on on the grounds will keep Vision distracted for long, but he can hope. If nothing else, they might get a head start.

 

Carefully, he sets the grate back against the vent, and lowers himself through the opening. He dangles for a moment, gauging the distance, and then drops the rest of the way to the ground, landing almost silently. _Still got it_ , he congratulates himself, and takes a step toward Wanda, who’s still looking out the window.

 

She turns, and flings a knife at his face.

 

Long-honed reflexes let him go still without pulling a weapon, and he stops, eyeing the point of the knife that’s frozen only an inch or two from his face. Several feet away, Wanda is staring at him in horror. Clint forces himself to relax, knowing his next reaction will make the difference between seting her on edge and letting her know he’s got her back. Cocking one brow at her, he raises a hand and brushes the knife away from his face with two gloved fingers. “Guess I should’ve knocked,” he says lightly.

 

Relief floods through her features, replaced an instant later by confusion. “Oh my God,” she breathes, taking a hesitant step toward him, and then another, and then, as if a flood has broken, keeps moving until she’s at his side. “What are you doing here?”

 

Clint draws an arrow, trying to give himself a little insurance for Vision’s inevitable return. “Disappointing my kids,” he says, with more ease than he really feels. He fires a voltage field arrow into the wall, and then another to set it. “We were supposed to go water-skiing.”

 

Wanda stares at him in obvious bewilderment, and he holds out his hand for hers. Despite the questions showing clearly on her face, she takes it, curling her fingers around his palm. “Cap needs our help,” he says. “Come on.”

 

The questions smooth away and she nods, falling into step with him.

 

They make it halfway across the room before Vision’s voice booms out behind them. “Clint!”

 

Fuck, Clint thinks, and stops walking.

 

“You should not be here.”

 

There’s that smugness. Clint sighs, and turns. “Really?” He lets Wanda’s hand go. “I retire for like, what, five minutes, and it all goes to shit?”

 

Vision steps toward them, tall and imposing, and beside him, Clint feels Wanda take a half-step back. “Please consider the consequences of your actions.”

 

Wanda tenses next to him, and that’s enough to put Clint’s hackles up. He keeps his expression steady. “Okay,” he says. “They’re considered.”

 

Vision moves forward again, and the voltage field activates, sending twenty thousand volts into synthetic skin. Vision buckles, and Clint takes his chance. “Okay, we gotta go,” he says, and heads back toward the door.

 

He makes it halfway there when he realizes she’s not following him. He spares half a second to lament that he really didn’t want to give a pep talk today, and turns. Wanda’s still standing where he left her, hugging her arms together, her face tight with guilt and uncertainty. Clint makes a last attempt at levity. “It’s this way,” he says, pointing over his shoulder.

 

Wanda swallows, and shakes her head. “I’ve caused enough problems.”

 

Clint sets his teeth. He’s not sure who she’s been listening to to put this shit into her head, but as soon as he figures it out, there’s gonna be a _long_ talk. But Wanda’s still looking at the floor, and he sighs, jogging back to her. Her posture is tense and unhappy, and he can read that well enough to know she doesn’t want contact. He goes for tough love instead. “You gotta help me, Wanda,” he says, breaking out Dad Voice with absolutely no apology. She looks up at him, eyes full of too many emotions to count, and he shoves down the urge to pull her into a rough hug. “Look, you wanna mope, you can go to high school. You wanna make amends, you get off. Your. Ass.”

 

Wanda’s lips part in surprise, but before Clint can say anything, he sees movement over her shoulder as Vision gets to his feet. “Shit,” he says.

 

He knows--he gets it, okay? Unarmed (okay, even armed), he’s no match for most of the Avengers on his best day, and it’s sheer skill--and no small amount of dumb luck--that let him keep up with them most of the time.

 

Today is _not_ his best day. He’s been out of the game, more than a little out of practice, and he’s spent way too many hours today driving, crawling around air ducts, and planting explosives.

 

And Vision is...well, yeah.

 

This isn’t gonna end well.

 

He gets one arrow drawn and loosed before Vision knocks him _hard_ to the ground, the extra power he puts into the blow pushing Clint back several feet. Circus-trained reflexes trained in and he tumbles into the fall, too practiced after this many years to even register the pain of rolling over his quiver, and he lands in a half-lunge, wincing at the pull of his abductors. “Knew I should have stretched,” he mutters. Natasha’s never gonna let him hear the end of this one.

 

Vision’s already moving, and Clint pushes his inner monologue away, focusing in on the fight. It’s quick and dirty and totally one-sided; he knows, from the moment he goes in, that he’s not gonna win.

 

But then, he thinks, grunting at a flash of pain as Vision wrenches him back into a headlock, his arm pressed tight across Clint’s windpipe, he doesn’t need to win.

 

“Clint,” Vision says. His voice is calm, but pressure of the arm he has across Clint’s throat is just this side of dangerous, and Clint’s sure he knows it. Clint drags one arm up to try and pull down on Vision’s arm, but it’s useless. Whatever brief camaraderie they’d shared in Sokovia, Vision certainly doesn’t seem particularly moved by it now. “You cannot overpower me.”

 

Clint’s vision is starting to spot at the edges, and he gives up his attempt at pulling Vision’s arm away. “I know I can’t,” he bites out. He drags his eyes to Wanda. Her features are tight with horror, and as Clint watches, holding her gaze as firmly as he can with his windpipe being compressed, resolution settles in her eyes. “But she can.”

 

He feels Vision move to look up at her, but Wanda is already stepping closer to them, red light dancing at her fingertips. “Vision,” she says, her voice trembling slightly but her expression firm, “that’s enough. Let him go.” The swirling ball of energy between her hands pulses, and her voice gets stronger, steadier. “I’m leaving.”

 

“I can’t let you,” Vision says.

 

Wanda throws her arms out, energy darting forward. The arm holding Clint seems to go incorporeal, but he barely notices--his vision is swimming, and he feels his knees buckle, slumping to the ground as he tries to catch his breath. He’s aware, vaguely, of Wanda whispering, “I’m sorry,” and the sudden, piercing crack of the floor under Vision’s feet.

 

Clint forces himself up onto his palms and twists to look back, just in time to see Vision stagger. “If you do this,” Vision grits out, “they will never stop being afraid of you.”

 

Anger twists in Clint’s gut at the manipulation in that, but Wanda doesn’t falter. “I can’t control their fear,” she says. “Only my own.”

 

And then Vision is gone, crashing down, down, down through their floor and the floor below and god knows how many more. Clint drags himself to his feet, wincing and unsteady, and keeps his distance until Wanda lets the energy in her hands dissipate with a pained sob, emotions clear on her face. She doesn’t move, just stares down at the hole she’s made, her shoulders trembling, and Clint carefully steps up behind her, opening his mouth to say something comforting before he makes the mistake of glancing down into the crater that used to be the kitchen floor.

 

“Woah,” he mutters, before he can stop himself. Wanda looks at him, her features terrified. She’s waiting for judgment, he realizes, judgment or punishment. He pushes down the urge to tug her into a rough embrace until she stops shaking. It’s enough that she was kept here in the compound against her will. He’ll be damned if he’s going to push her boundaries. If she wants a hug, she’ll ask for one. “Come on,” he says, a little more gruffly than he means to. “We got one more stop.”

 

He turns away from her, giving her space to take whatever moment she needs to leave Vision--and her home--behind. He’s already got a bag of her gear and costume, grabbed from the armory, in his car.

 

It only takes a moment before he hears the soft click of her heels as she catches up with him. She doesn’t speak, but she does take his hand, her fingers clutching fiercely around his. He glances at her. Her eyes are bright with unshed tears, but her face is determined, her shoulders set firm.

 

That’s his girl. He squeezes her hand, and leads her out the door.

 

…

 

They’re an hour out from the compound, speeding up the Taconic, when Wanda croaks, “Stop the car.”

 

Clint has been waiting for this since they left Vision in a hole in the ground, and he’s a little impressed she lasted this long. He signals right and pulls onto the shoulder.

 

Wanda throws open the door as soon as the car stops, stumbling onto the grass and doubling over onto her hands and knees. Clint hears her start to retch and winces, reaching into the back seat to tug a water bottle out of his duffle bag. Flipping on the hazard lights, he climbs out of the car and walks around to crouch next to her, carefully gathering her hair away from her face and securing it loosely with an elastic he fishes out of his jeans pocket--Lila’s or Laura’s, he isn’t quite sure. He doesn’t say anything, just waits quietly for her to finish.

 

He’s done this before. He knows how bad it sucks.

 

Finally, Wanda sits back, swiping a hand across her mouth. Clint passes her the water bottle and she takes it, checking the seal to make sure it’s intact--a former homeless kid impulse that Clint recognizes with a twinge in his own stomach--before opening it and taking a few shaking sips. Her hand trembles badly around the water, and Clint reaches out and gently steadies her arm to keep her from spilling.

 

To his surprise, she lets him, leaning a little closer to him. She lowers the bottle with a shuddering exhale. “I’m exactly what they said I am,” she whispers, trembling badly against him. “I should be in a cage.”

 

“No, you shouldn’t.” Clint gets to his feet and pulls Wanda gently to hers, steering her away from the mess on the ground. He leads her back to the car and guides her to sit against the hood. “No one put you on trial, Wanda. No one convicted you. Tony Stark doesn’t get to play judge and jury.”

 

Wanda shudders. “I trusted him,” she says dully. “Stark. Vision. Both of them. And they…” She swallows, her hands crunching the plastic of the bottle. Gently, Clint extricates it from her grip, holding onto it for her. She doesn’t seem to notice. “I thought that they were _good_.” She looks up at him, her eyes bright with tears. Angry tears, he thinks, not sad--it’s anger, anger and betrayal.

 

“Stark took so long to convince me that he was different from the man I was raised to believe he was. And in the end, he was just--”

 

Sparks dance at the edge of her fingertips, and Clint covers her hand with his. “Hey,” he says. “No.” She looks startled, and a little irritated, but he keeps his grip firm. “Stark’s a lot of things, Wanda,” he says, “But I’d bet my farm he thinks he was doing the right thing by keeping you at the compound. That he was keeping you safe from something worse.”

 

Wanda parts her lips. “Was he?”

 

She sounds suddenly uncertain. Clint shrugs. “I don’t know,” he admits. “He could have been. Or he could have been painting a giant target on you. I got in on my own with a stick and a string. Who knows what the US military could do?”

 

She smiles faintly. “You do not just have a stick and a string, Clint,” she says, a little fond.

 

Clint grins. The smile, he thinks, is a start. “No,” he agrees. “I guess not.” He nudges her gently, hands her back the water. “Drink the rest of this,” he instructs. “And then we’re getting back on the road.” She takes it, setting it obediently to her lips, and he takes advantage of the silence to keep talking. “Whatever they said about you, Wanda, you took control of something that scared you today,” he says softly. “That’s a tough thing. Monsters let their fear control them, not the other way around.”

 

Wanda drains the bottle and lowers it, looking at him. “And Vision?” she asks in a small, quiet voice.

 

Clint shrugs one shoulder. “Vision’s a tough motherfucker, too,” he says. “And to be honest, if he was any kind of man at all, he’d have gotten you out the minute you said you didn’t want to be there.”

 

Her expression flickers briefly into something Clint can’t quite read, and then resolves into resolve. “Where do we go now?”

 

It’s a clear, pointed subject change. Clint narrows his eyes at her, but her knuckles are white around the water bottle, and he sighs, deciding to let her get away with it. “LA.”

 

Wanda startles. “Los Angeles? How are we going to get there?”

 

Clint cocks an eyebrow. “Hey,” he says. “Don’t you trust me?”

 

Wanda looks at him, and for a moment, Clint thinks maybe he’s said the wrong thing--she’s just had her trust betrayed pretty badly, after all; with both Stark and Vision fucking her over. But she reaches out and takes his hand, curling her fingers around his and squeezing, tight. “Yes,” she whispers. “I do.”

 

The weight of her words settles over him, heavy as the first time Cooper had been placed into his arms, birth-wet and squirming. He feels them tight in his chest, the responsibility of them.

 

He is not going to fuck this up.

 

Clint takes a breath. “Good,” he says. He squeezes her hand, and let’s it go. “Then get your ass back in the car.”

 

Wanda huffs, but it’s a soft laugh of a thing, and as she slides off the hood of the car, Clint sees the flash of a smile tug at her lips.

 

…

 

Here’s what Clint knows about Scott Lang prior to knocking on his door:

 

  1. He’s got a Master’s in Electrical Engineering.
  2. He’s done time.
  3. Sam Wilson thinks he’s good enough to help them take down a crew of Russian-enhanced super soldiers.



 

Here’s what Clint learns about Scott Lang within about sixty seconds of meeting him:

 

  1. He’s a total fucking dork.



 

“Oh my God, you’re Hawkeye,” Lang says, gaping at him. “Hawkeye the Avenger!”

 

Clint looks at him warily. In person, Lang looks better than his mugshot. Most people do, but for Lang the difference is startling--there’s a light in his eyes; he looks happier, better fed, healthier. He’s a few years older than Clint, according to the records Clint’s pulled, but the years have been kinder to him than they have to Clint. “Yep,” he says. “What, did you think I was kidding?”

 

“No, man! Of course not!” Lang bounces slightly on the balls of his feet. Clint is reminded, vaguely, of Lucky. “I just--I’ve got this friend, y’know? And I think he would totally fuck with me like this.”

 

Clint raises one eyebrow. “By telling you that Captain America wants you to come help him take out an international terrorist?”

 

Lang shrugs. “What, you don’t have weird friends?”

Briefly, Clint considers the various things Natasha and Maria--and, to an only slightly lesser degree, Laura--have done to fuck with him over the years, and concedes the point. “Fair,” he says. “Grab your shit, Lang, we’ve got a long trip.”

 

Lang blinks. “Just like that?” When Clint eyes him in confusion, he stammers out, “I mean, I guess I thought, y’know, you guys are like, the Avengers? Isn’t there like an application? Or like, an interview?” He looks briefly horrified. “Do I have to check the felony box? I hate the fucking felony box.”

 

“Everyone hates the felony box,” Clint says. Not that he’s ever checked it, but he’s definitely committed his share of felonies. “And no. In case you haven’t noticed, the roster’s a little thin these days, and people aren’t exactly banging down the door to join. Cap says you’re good, you’re good.” He nods toward the gear bag sitting behind Lang’s feet. He’d left Wanda in the car, and he’s antsy to get back to her. “So grab your shit, and let’s go.”

 

He turns without waiting to see if Lang will follow, and starts heading back down the apartment’s rickety staircase. Jesus fuck, California, he thinks, what are your property management laws? He senses, more than he hears, Lang fall into step beside him. “So, like, question,” Lang asks, breathing a bit heavily under the weight of the duffle. “Exactly how badly am I violating my parole?”

 

Clint reaches the ground landing and pauses, glancing back at him. Lang looks like he’s trying to seem casual, like Clint’s answer, whatever it is, won’t bother him. But there are lines around his mouth and his shoulders have tightened under his shirt, and Clint knows what someone looks like when they’re hiding something. He sighs, turning to face him properly. “Partner or kid?”

 

Lang startles. “What?”

 

“Partner or kid?” Clint repeats. When Lang doesn’t respond, Clint elaborates. “You’re not worried about yourself, you’re worried about someone else. No animal fur on your clothes, so it’s not a pet. So: partner or kid?”

 

Lang’s mouth opens, like he’s not sure what to say. He’s quiet for a moment, and then he licks his lips and says, “Kid.” He shifts his grip on his bag, rocking back and forth on the step before he looks back up at Clint. “Cassie. She’s eight.”

 

Right between Cooper and Lila, Clint thinks. He slips his hands into his back pockets. “She live with her mom?” Lang nods, and Clint sighs through his nose. “Well,” he says. “Look. You got two options. I could tell you the plan, and you’d be...definitely fucking up your parole. Or I could not tell you the plan, and we could make like it’s a kidnapping.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Either way you’ll probably end up screwed if this goes belly-up, but one of them might look a little better if you’re going for custody any time soon.”

 

Lang snorts out a laugh. “No,” he says, only sounding a little wistful about it. “Cassie’s--she’s better off where she is. She’s good with her mom. I see her pretty often, now.” He sobers. “Guess it might not be for a little while.”

 

Clint nods. “Might not,” he says, as kindly as he can. “You wanna call her? Say goodbye?”

 

“Nah.” Lang gives him a faint smile. “Don’t want to worry her if I don’t have to.” He pauses, eyes narrowing, doofy puppy giving way to surprisingly steely intelligence. “You got kids, Hawkeye?”

 

Normally, Clint’d tell him to fuck off, but these are special circumstances. “Three,” he says. And Wanda, his brain adds. He shoves that thought pointedly into a corner of his head and stomps on it.

 

Lang looks surprised. “Yeah?” he asks. “They know where you are?”

 

“As much as they can understand,” Clint says. It’s not like Nate’s old enough to get where he’s gone off to. His gut twists at the thought, and he pushes it back to where he’d put the one about Wanda.

 

“That’s hard shit, man.” Lang holds his gaze for a moment more, and then gives him a shaky grin. “But I guess that’s what we’re fighting for, right?”

 

It’s optimistic and far too simple, and Clint can already see this guy getting shot in front of him as quickly as Pietro had, his energy and idealism too bright for the fight at hand. Still, he returns the smile, as easily as he can, thinking of a world where his kids grow up without shadows looming over their heads. “Sure is, buddy,” he says. “It sure is.”

 

…

 

The trip to France takes two days, eighteen pieces of forged identification from three different sources, five forms of transportation, and all of Clint’s skill at reading body language at airports to successfully identify the laziest and least observant security guards and ticket inspectors. They pay for everything in cash--“Is this stolen?” Scott asks, at one point, looking only a little apprehensive. “Not technically,” Clint says, because he _did_ take a bunch of it from some of Natasha’s accounts, but she also gave him her PIN, so he figures it doesn’t really count as stealing, especially if he’s going to eventually pay her back--and Clint’s actually pretty impressed that the only legitimately illegal thing they do to get to Paris, other than totally violating the terms of Scott’s parole, is the fake IDs.

 

Clint’s contact in France meets them at the pickup line at Charles de Gaulle, leaning against the sketchiest white van Clint’s ever seen. “Barton!” he exclaims, tossing his cigarette away, and then proceeds to say something enthusiastic and probably insulting in French that’s too fast for Clint’s out of practice ear to follow. He’s grinning, though, and he pulls Clint into a rough embrace.

 

“Laf,” he greets. “Can’t thank you enough for this, man.”

 

Laf shakes his head, dreads flying. “Least I could do,” he says. He glances over Clint’s shoulder at Wanda and Scott, hanging back slightly, and breaks into a smile. “And your friends, they are also--”

 

“Yes,” Clint cuts him off. “But keep it down, yeah?” Laf nods, chastised. Clint loves the dude, but for a smuggler (mostly of people getting themselves the fuck out of the sex trade, but also occasionally of weapons and, as Clint’s found out in the last forty-eight hours, superheroes), he has a surprising inability to filter in public places. He looks up at the van, squinting. “It’s a bit, uh, serial killer, isn’t it?”

 

Laf shrugs. “It was short notice,” he says, a little apologetically. “You will have to buy a lot of petrol.”

 

“Hold up,” Scott says. “We’re _driving_ to Germany?”

 

“It takes less time to drive from Paris to Berlin than it takes to drive across California,” Clint tells him flatly. “And you can nap in the back. Shush.” Wanda muffles a giggle behind her hand. “Can I swap you some cash?”

 

Laf digs out his wallet, and they spend a few minutes debating exchange rate while Scott and Wanda load their gear bags into the back of the van. In the end, Clint gets a thick wad of euros and Laf gets more US dollars than he probably should, but then, he’s doing Clint a hell of a favor. “You know the way, or you need directions?” Laf asks, as Clint climbs into the driver’s seat.

 

“I’ll figure it out,” Clint says, adjusting the mirrors. “You know me, I love a road trip.”

 

Laf gives him a wolfish grin. “More so when you are not bleeding, I think,” he teases. He pats the door. “You leave the van at the airport. I will have someone collect it.” He pauses. “Tell your friend, Captain America, that there are those who remember what he did in France during the war. We don’t forget him here. We don’t believe what they are saying about him, now.”

 

It’s touching, in an odd way, hearing such fervent dedication from such a rough man, and Clint feels a lump in his throat. “I’ll tell him,” he promises. He reaches through the window to squeeze Laf’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he says, sincerely. “Seriously, man.”

 

“Well.” Laf sniffs, but he reaches up to close his hand over Clint’s wrist. He holds Clint’s gaze for a moment, and then grins. “You send that redhead to visit me sometime, we call it even, yes?”

 

Clint rolls his eyes. “You always ruin the moment,” he says, and Laf cackles. “We’d better get going before we hit traffic.”

 

“What traffic?” Scott asks from where he’s sprawled across the back seat. “It’s four in the morning.”

 

“Do not underestimate the A1,” Laf says sagely. He looks past Clint at Wanda, just briefly, and then back at Clint. He says something in French that Clint doesn’t catch, and then, “It’s a strange world now, my friend,” he says. “Are you going now to make it better, or worse?”

 

Clint takes a breath. “Better,” he says. “We hope.”

 

Laf nods, his dark eyes solemn. Clint puts the van into gear, and starts the long drive west.

 

..

 

Because Clint is a Fucking Adult, the first words out of his mouth when he pulls into the parking garage are not, “is that a fucking punch buggy, Rogers, are you kidding me?”

 

Steve looks like shit, though, so Clint controls his face, climbing out of the van and walking around to shake his hand. “Cap.”

 

Despite the shadows in his eyes, Steve’s handshake is firm, his face flooded with gratitude, even if it is tinged with guilt. “You know I wouldn’t have called if I had any other choice.”

 

“Hey, man, you’re doing me a favor,” Clint says, going for a light, easy tone. And hey, maybe it’s true, even if the circumstances are awful. The longer the stretches he stays at home, the more likely Laura is to attempt to smother him with a pillow when he starts itching to knock down a wall in the house. “Besides,” he adds, glancing back at Wanda. “I owe a debt.”

 

Steve follows his gaze toward her, and his eyes soften. “Thanks for having my back.”

 

Wanda steps forward, her shoulder just barely brushing Clint’s. “It was time to get off my ass.”

 

She smiles slightly, glancing at Clint like they share a secret, and maybe they do. Clint returns her smile, gently. Steve cocks an eyebrow. “What about our other recruit?”

 

The moment between him and Wanda broken, Clint rolls his shoulders back and heads back to the van. “Rearin’ to go,” he says, sliding the door open. Scott, who’d fallen asleep before they’d hit the German border and woken up only to present his (fake) French passport to a border guard before passing out again, jerks awake. “You might have to put a little coffee in him,” he amends. “But he should be good.”

 

Scott looks blearily at him as he stumbles out of the van. “What time zone is this?”

 

“Come on,” Clint says. Scott looks unconvinced, and Clint gives him a pointed shove toward Steve. “C’mon.”

 

While Scott geeks out over Steve like the absolute nerd he is--after all this is over, Clint and Sam are going to have _words_ about the Avengers recruiting process; Clint might be a former carnie with a paleolithic weapon, but at least he’s a damn professional about it--Clint ducks back into the van and digs a burner out of his bag. He’s been texting Laura from time to time, when he dares, and he shoots off a quick message now.

 

  

 

He’s waiting for Laura to reply when he realizes the conversation is circling back to him. “I’ve got a chopper lined up,” he says, slipping the phone back into his pocket.

 

An announcement came over the PA system, and they all pause to listen to it, though how many of them are translating and how many of them waiting for someone else to explain, Clint can’t say. Barnes, who looks exhausted but not nearly as shitty as Clint would expect for someone in his position, says, “They’re evacuating the airport.”

 

Sam glances at Steve. “Stark?” he asks.

 

“Stark?” Lang echoes nervously.

 

Steve’s jaw tightens. “Suit up.”

 

He starts to turn away.

 

Scott clears his throat. “Uh,” he says. “Where?”

 

Steve pauses. “What?”

 

Scott gestures to the parking garage around them. “Like, do we just strip down, or…?”

 

He trails off, looking awkwardly back and forth between Steve and Sam and Clint, clearly hoping for some guidance. “I mean, we can’t just go into the airport and grab a bathroom, so…”

 

Barnes snorts. Steve shoots him a look that seems to be caught somewhere between exasperation and fondness, and then huffs a sigh. “Guess we’re stripping down out here,” he says.

 

“ _You_ are,” Wanda says sharply. She pulls the back door to the van open, drags out Clint and Scott’s bags, and drops them unceremoniously to the pavement.

 

“Hey,” Clint protests. “Careful.” She rolls her eyes at him, and climbs into the van, pulling the door closed behind her with a decisive click. Clint turns back to Steve, finding him watching with one raised, surprisingly amused eyebrow. Clint shrugs. “Kids, man.”

 

“Right,” Steve says dryly. He digs a set of keys out of his pocket, and goes to unlock the truck of the piece of shit Volkswagen that he, Barnes, and Sam somehow crammed themselves into, and Clint bends down to unzip his gear bag.

 

He changes quickly. The new costume is a little weird--he’d only tried it once or twice, and it takes a few tries to figure out the straps, but he gets into it easily enough. Slinging his quiver onto his back, he glances over his shoulder to check on everyone else’s progress, and then slides the burner out of the bag again, walking a few yards away to risk a call to Laura.

 

She picks up on the first ring. “Clint?”

 

Her voice is tight and breathless. It’s the first time he’s heard it since he left home. “Hey, love.”

 

“What’s going on?”

 

Clint closes his eyes, trying to picture her. It’s a Sunday, he thinks, and given the time difference she must be home, maybe even still in bed. He draws an image of her, curled in their blankets, the phone pressed to her ear, her hair a mess, no makeup, bleary-eyed with sleep. He pictures her beautiful, and opens his eyes so that he can keep an eye on the garage around him. “Wrench in the plans,” he says. “Stark’s here. We’re guessing he brought a crew.”

 

She sucks in a breath. “What does that mean?”

 

He doesn’t bother mincing words. “Most likely? That there’s gonna be a fight.”

 

Laura’s quiet for a moment. “Nat,” she says.

 

Clint heart stops. “Shit,” he says. “I don’t--I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her.”

 

“I have,” she says. “She’s with Tony. Clint, _God_.”

 

She sounds ready to cry, and Clint swallows hard. “Laur. We’ll--it’s gonna be fine. She’s not gonna hurt me.”

 

Laura laughs, a bitter sound. “Like she couldn’t?”

 

“I didn’t say she _couldn’t_ ,” Clint says, because he’s not an idiot. He’s good, but Natasha’s better; he’s not gonna kid himself about that. “I said she won’t. Whatever’s about to happen, she’ll make sure I get out of it alive. I can promise you that.”

 

Laura goes silent for so long Clint worries the call dropped. “Laura?”

 

“Was that a possibility?” She asks. “That you wouldn’t?”

 

Clint hesitates. “Laur--”

“I mean, there was the prison thing, but Clint, you _dying_ \--”

 

“It’s always a possibility,” he says gently. “Laura. You know that.”

 

She takes a shuddering breath. “God.” And then, “I didn’t miss this.”

 

Clint closes his eyes for a moment. “I know.” He sighs. “I’d better go. I just...I wanted to hear your voice.”

 

“I’m glad you called.” She swallows audibly, and he can hear her choking back tears. His own eyes are stinging. Fuck, he hates this, he shouldn’t have called. It’s always worse when he calls. “I love you so much.”

 

“I love you, too. Tell the kids for me.”

 

“I will. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

 

That’s the rule. They don’t say goodbye. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

 

Laura hangs up first. Clint takes a shaking breath, and ejects the SIM card from the phone, breaking it in half. He drops the two halves to the ground and proceeds to systematically crush them under his boot.

 

Once they’re mostly just bits of unrecognizable plastic, he heads back to the rest of the group. Everyone’s changed and assembled (ha, he thinks dryly) and Steve and Barnes seem to be debating strategy. “Barton,” he says, “Come be a tie-breaker. What do you think? Go in all together, or split up?”

 

“Absolutely split up,” Clint says flatly. “Why is that even being debated? We go in all at once and all they have to do is throw a net.”

 

Barnes looks at Steve as if in other circumstances he might stick out his tongue, and Clint resists the urge to snort out a laugh. Somewhere, buried under decades of trauma, is probably a really amusing dude. He hopes they live long enough to get to know him.

 

“Fine,” Steve says. “Here’s the plan. I’ll go in first, get to the chopper, check it out, send a signal. Bucky and Sam’ll run recon on their quinjet; we’ll use that as an alternate getaway if we need it. Clint, Wanda, you guys are eyes in the sky. Get high, play defense.”

 

“What about me?” Lang asks

 

Steve glances at him. “You’re backup. No offense, but you don’t have all that much combat experience. Stay out til I call you in.”

 

Scott looks like he can’t decide whether he’s put out or relieved, and Clint grins, patting him on the shoulder. “Either way, you’ll have a good story to tell your kid,” he tells him, and Scott gives him a lopsided smile.

 

They split up. Clint taps Wanda’s arm and jerks his head toward the stairwell, and she nods, falling into step behind him. They head up a few more levels, and Clint finds them a spot with good sight lines but better cover, where they can see but not be seen. He pulls an arrow but doesn’t draw it back, setting down to wait.

 

Wanda touches his arm. “Clint?”

 

He glances at her. Her expression is soft, nervous. “Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

 

“Yes.” She licks her lips. “I just…” She takes a deep breath. “I wanted to thank you.”

 

Clint raises his eyebrows, lowering his bow. “For what?”

 

“For…” Wanda shifts slightly, the fabric of her jacket rustling. She flexes her fingers. “After Pietro, I thought...I am alone in the world, I have no more family. And Steve and Sam and Natasha, they are my team, my friends, but they aren’t…” She swallows, and looks up at him. “You came for me, when no one else did,” she says softly. “You didn’t have to. You were done, you did not have to come. You could have left me there, and stayed home, with your family.”

 

She takes another breath, and this one shudders. “But you didn’t.”

 

Clint realizes what she’s saying, and his heart goes tight in his chest. “Wanda,” he says, and the words catch in his throat. He puts down his bow and arrow and takes both her hands in his, looking her square in the face. “The only way I would have left you there,” he says, dead serious, “was if you had wanted to stay.” He holds her gaze, searching her face. “You get me?”

 

Wanda’s lower lip trembles. She nods. “Thank you,” she whispers.

 

Clint squeezes her hands. “This is your fight, too,” he says, simply.

 

He starts to pull away, but she holds his hands fast. “Not for that,” she says.

 

Clint hesitates, waiting to see if she’ll say more, but she just looks at him, a little desperately, clearly hoping he’ll get her meaning without her putting it into words. Quietly, he leans forward, and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead. “You’re welcome,” he says softly.

 

Wanda shudders, leaning into the press of his lips. Clint lingers for a moment, and then pulls back.

 

“Now,” he says, reaching down to pick up his bow and tilting his head toward the airport. “What do you say we kick a little ass, yeah?”

 

Wanda wipes her eyes, and when she smiles, there’s a hint of fire. “Yes,” she says. “I say yes.”

 

She settles in beside him. Clint sets an arrow to his bow, and watches Steve stride forward toward their chopper. He can feel the weight of the moment settle over him, and the comfortable steadiness of Wanda’s presence at his side.

 

He’s right where he’s supposed to be.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And in the next chapter: EVERYTHING GOES TO SHIT.
> 
> Feel like yelling at me? I'm [on tumblr](http://geniusorinsanity.tumblr.com). :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even have...the tiniest excuse for how long this took to update. Is "I was in a creative pit" an excuse? Because that's what I've got.
> 
> HERE HAVE SOME FEELINGS.

**now**

 

Whether it’s the flurry of activity, the emotional stress, or the head trauma, Clint doesn’t actually remember much of the actual fight.

 

What he does remember, vividly and unfortunately, is the aftermath.

 

“Shit,” Scott says. Clint can’t blame him; they’re _fucked_. “What do we do?”

 

Clint grits his teeth, tightening his grip on his bow for half a second, running through strategies in his head.

 

He knows, even as he does it, that it’s useless. They need to take the fall. “Put your weapons down,” he says. “And go quietly.”

 

“But--”

 

“He’s right,” Sam says, his voice sharp and clear through the comm. “They’ll shoot to kill, and we don’t…” His sigh whistles through the mic. “Just stand down.”

 

Clint watches the troops approach with a wary eye, and bends, carefully and slowly, placing his bow on the ground. He keeps his hands visible as he unfastens the straps of his quiver, putting that on the ground as well. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of Natasha, her expression blank. She meets his eyes, and her lips thin, just a fraction.

 

He gives her the most reassuring smile he can, even knowing it’s probably more of a grimace, and spreads his hands slightly. Natasha’s brow furrows, but her features soften slightly. She glances around her, clearly looking to see if anyone is watching her, and then signs to him, her fingers a bit clumsy after so many years out of practice, _any message?_

 

Clint catches his breath, and has to hold himself still to keep from flinching. He thinks about it, but there’s nothing he could sign to Natasha that would say what he needs to say, and anyway, Laura--

 

Laura knows. She always knows.

 

He shakes his head. And then, just to try to make her smile, he flashes the sign for  _I love you_ , cheesy and obnoxious.

 

It works, and she rolls her eyes. Clint allows himself a fraction of a smile. She’s definitely pissed, but it’s the best he can do, standing across a battlefield, their friends in tatters, the beginnings of a migraine tugging at the back of his neck.

 

The troops are advancing now, guns up, and Clint sweeps his gaze over the airstrip, trying to get eyes on his people. Sam’s stripped off his wings, the flight suit on the ground, and he has his hands up. His face is stony, and his mouth twitches with barely-restrained anger as three peacekeepers reach him, grabbing him by the shoulders and forcing him down to his knees, putting his hands behind his back to cuff him. Scott gets the same treatment, his face unreadable, his helmet kicked away from him.

 

Wanda--

 

Clint’s heart drops into his stomach.

 

 _Fuck_.

 

Half a squad of peacekeepers surrounds her, at least ten guns trained on her head. She puts her hands up without prompting, but one of the soldiers starts yelling at her in furious German. Wanda shakes her head, her expression shifting from compliance to confusion and then to frustration, and starts to lower her hands. The yelling gets louder, the guns go up again.

 

One of the soldiers standing at Wanda’s back pulls a taser, and fires the cables into her back. She drops.

 

Clint snaps.

 

“ _Hey!_ ” He takes off running towards her, not caring that he’s not armed, not caring that someone might shoot him in the back of the head. “Hey, she’s fucking complying, what the fuck are you--”

 

Someone tackles him from behind and he goes down in a heap onto the asphalt. He almost expects it to be Natasha, but it’s a male body, huge and hulking and firm, and Clint turns his head just in time to keep his nose from smashing into the pavement. The guy is yelling him, and Clint doesn’t bother trying to figure out what he’s saying, just drives an elbow back. He hits body armor, which shouldn’t be a fucking surprise, but he twists anyway. “Get the _fuck_ off me,” he spits. “She’s a fucking kid, get those fuckers off her--”

 

He feels the impact of another body throwing itself on top of him and grunts at the increased weight. A hand fists roughly into his hair and slams his head down onto the ground, and he bites out a few more expletives. His vision’s obstructed now; he can’t see Wanda, but he hears her scream. He wants to yell for Natasha, to tell her to fucking _do something_ , but he sees a flash of red hair and knows she’s already moving--

 

20,000 volts slam into him, and everything goes black.

 

…

 

He swims back to consciousness, and realizes he’s moving.

 

The sharp points of the taser’s probes impact sting on his side as he shifts, trying to shake his head back into awareness. His hands are cuffed behind his back, his ankles strapped together, and he swears under his breath.

 

“Clint?”

 

He forces his eyes open to meet Sam’s, and then squeezes them shut again when the world pitches and dips uncomfortably. His head is pounding, but it only takes half a second for him to realize that the spinning is only slightly due to the probable concussion--they’re also in a helicopter. “Fuck,” he mutters, and opens his eyes again.

 

The chopper is close-quartered. Sam is cuffed and strapped in across from him, Scott a few feet away. There are a handful of the UN troops in with them, and one of them jabs Clint firmly with the butt of his rifle. “No talking,” he says, in sharply accented English.

 

Clint ignores him. “Wanda?” he asks Sam.

 

Sam grits his teeth. “Separate chopper,” he says. There are bruises blossoming against his cheek, and Clint doesn’t know what might be hidden under his uniform, but he looks like he’s in pain. “In a fucking cage.”

 

Clint clenches his fists hard enough that his nails cut into his palms. “Motherfuckers--”

 

The soldier next to him jabs him again. “ _No talking_ ,” he repeats.

 

Clint glances at him, narrowing his eyes in annoyance. There’s no way the guy’s going to shoot him, not in a moving chopper. He’s just being obnoxious.

 

Scott leans forward as much as the straps across his chest will allow. “What do we _do_?” he asks, his voice pitched low, like that makes a difference right now. He gets a jab of his own from the soldier next to him, and winces.

 

Clint hesitates. But Sam’s looking at him, too, and Clint realizes with an uncomfortable twist that of all of them left, he has the most training, the most experience, the most team seniority, even if he’s supposed to be retired.

 

They’re not going to try anything in a moving helicopter. He doesn’t know where they’re going, or what’s coming next, and he needs eyes on Wanda before he can even think of a plan.

 

He takes a breath. “We wait,” he says. The soldier next to him jabs him with the gun _again_ , and Clint snaps. “Poke me with that thing one more time, and I swear to God I will throw you out of this fucking chopper.”

 

The soldier draws back with a quick intake of breath. His face is mostly hidden by his gear, but Clint can see his eyes, and the flash of fear and uncertainty in them. Then it smooths away. “You will not,” he says.

 

“Try me,” Clint says, dropping his voice to flatness.

 

There’s a moment of tense, uneasy silence, and then the soldier pulls his gun out of Clint’s ribs. “No talking,” he says again, sharp and firm, but he sits back.

 

The chopper keeps flying.

 

…

 

It’s the Raft.

 

After everything they’ve done, all the lives they’ve saved, they get put in the _fucking Raft_ like the worst scum of the criminal underground. They’re separated as soon as the chopper lands, dragged off to separate processing rooms. Clint whips his head around, hoping for a glance at Wanda, but only succeeds in getting the butt of a rifle jammed into the base of his spine for his trouble.

 

A handful of guards drag him through a decontamination shower that make the U.S. military barracks look like the Ritz Carlton, and then he’s pulled into a med bay and shoved onto a gurney. A woman in scrubs with probably-questionable medical credentials gives him an exam, her fingers lingering over the bruises on his cheeks and ribs.

 

He’s spent way too many years working with women who could kick his ass to ever judge a woman by her choice in cosmetics, but he’s willing to bet his balls this woman’s not a real doctor. Or if she is, she’s been sexed up to all hell.

 

Sure enough, when she’s done taping his ribs, she smooths her hand over his side and murmurs, “I don’t believe what they’re saying about you, Agent Barton.”

 

Clint suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. “Really,” he says.

 

“I had a brother in Manhattan,” she says, looking up at him through her eyelashes. It’s actually a pretty good effect--or would be, if he wasn’t married. He hopes she doesn’t try this shit on Scott. Sam’s got enough sense to see through it. “He’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

 

“Is that so,” he says. He knows where this is going.

 

The doctor (doctor?) steps closer to him, setting her hands on his thighs. Clint flinches, but his hands are cuffed to the rails of the gurney. She makes a show of glancing at the guards stationed by the door before lowering her voice, conspiratorially. “I want to help you,” she whispers. “If you tell me where Captain Rogers is going, I can get him a message--I can tell him where you are. I can help him rescue you.”

 

Jesus, he thinks, a little incredulous. _That’s_ what they’re going with?

 

“Sweetheart,” he says dryly, “I don’t know if you think I’m an amateur or just an absolute fucking idiot, but either way, that track is not gonna work.”

 

She pulls back sharply, her brow furrowing, and he’s almost glad to see her expression settle into something more like competence. “Fair enough,” she sniffs. She pulls a penlight out of the breast pocket pocket of her scrubs and shines it in his eyes again, and then puts it back. “CT’s on the fritz so I’m putting you on concussion protocol until we can clear you,” she says. Huh. Guess she is a doctor. “Ross is going to want to talk to you, and he’s not going to want you scrambled like an egg when he does.”

 

Clint snorts. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint Secretary Ross,” he says.

 

The doctor smiles, and it doesn’t reach her eyes. “No,” she says. “We wouldn’t.”

 

She nods to the MPs at the door, and they haul him out into the hall.

 

Another round of inmate processing, where he’s fingerprinted and bio-scanned and handed a pair of weird blue prison scrubs that he’s pretty sure Natasha would say do absolutely nothing for his skin tone, he’s shoved none-too-gently into a plexiglass cell.

 

“Well,” he mutters, hauling himself onto the bunk with a wince. “This sucks.”

 

The doors slide open, and another pair of guards drag Scott Lang in, putting him in the cell next to Clint’s. Clint shoots his eyebrows up, unable to keep his absolute amazement off his face.

 

They can’t _possibly_ be stupid enough to put them all in the same cell block. Right?

 

Right?

 

Apparently they can, because five minutes later, they bring Sam in, and after another ten, Wanda, though she’s clearly drugged, and Clint has to clench his hands into fists to keep from reacting like a hurricane at the sight of her in a straightjacket, her eyes dulled with whatever chemical restraints they have her on in addition to the physical ones.

 

And then the guards leave--leave! They _leave_! What the hell kind of security do they even _have_ here?--and they’re alone.

 

Clint lets out a slow breath. “Okay,” he says. “Who’s not dead? Sound off.”

 

Two cells down, Sam barks out a gruff, humorless laugh. “Fuck,” he says. “Jesus. What a mess.”

 

Scott sits heavily down on his bunk. Sound carries easily between the cells. “So much for parole, huh,” he says dully.

 

Wanda says nothing, sitting against the wall of her cell, staring blankly ahead.

 

Clint spares a moment to feel bad for him, because it _does_ suck, it does, that he was dragged into their mess and now he’s in a prison in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to go but down. But he has bigger things to worry about. He crouches down, looking through the glass, through his cell and Scott’s and Sam’s, all the way through to Wanda’s.

 

“Wanda?” he calls, softly, keeping his voice as gentle as he can. She doesn’t respond. He swallows. “Baby girl, can you look at me?”

 

“Clint.” Sam sounds strained. “I don’t think she’s...they’ve got her on something, man.”

 

Clint closes his eyes, runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I just wanted to--shit.” He gets to his feet, wincing at the stretch in his ribs, and lowers himself down on the bunk. Then anger sparks in his veins and he jumps to his feet again, heedless of the protesting pain, and yells at the ceiling, “Did you forget about the fucking Geneva Convention, assholes?”

 

Scott startles. “Um, Clint? Who are you yelling at?”

 

“Probably the surveillance team they’ve got watching all of us,” Sam says, leaning against the wall of his cell. He huffs. “They’re dumb, but they’re not _that_ dumb.”

 

“Oh.” Scott rubs his chin. “I--that makes sense.”

 

Clint glares at the ceiling for another moment, and then looks back at Wanda. She’s still staring blankly ahead, her eyes dull and flat, and his stomach twists unpleasantly. Her hair hangs damp around her face, and he feels a curl of rage at the idea of someone forcing her through that decontaminating shower.

 

He forces the feeling down, bottles it up--he’ll use it later, when he gets out of here.

 

“Okay,” he says. “Alright, let’s just--Injuries?”

 

“Surface-level,” Sam says. “Probably one cracked rib, rest are bruised to hell.”

 

“Scott?”

 

“My face hurts,” Scott says, shrugging one shoulder. “And I’ll be black and blue in about an hour. But I think people took it easy on me.”

 

Despite himself, Clint snorts out a laugh. He’s probably right. “Yeah, most likely.”

 

“What about you, man?” Sam asks, narrowing his eyes.

 

Clint shakes his head, then winces at the motion. “I’m fine,” he says.

 

“Bullshit,” Sam says flatly. “I was pararescue, don’t lie to me.”

 

Laura would love him, Clint thinks. “Couple busted ribs, probable concussion from getting my head slammed into the pavement when I went after Wanda.” He smiles, feels his jaw twinge at the motion. He’s lucky he didn’t shake loose any teeth. “Serves me right, I guess.”

 

“Damn right, it does,” Sam says. “They probably had shoot to kill orders.”

 

Clint shakes his head. “Doubt it. Ross would have wanted us alive. They’re gonna try to get information out of us.”

 

Scott looks nervous. “Are you sure?”

 

“Positive,” Clint says. He sits down on his bunk, closes his eyes. Fuck concussion protocol. He’s going to get some sleep while he can. “It’s only a matter of time.”

 

…

 

It doesn’t take long.

 

By Clint’s internal clock, less than six hours have gone by before the electric lock disengages and door to the cell block slides open. A team of six MPs stalk in, and, to Clint’s total lack of surprise, come for his cell first.

 

“You can do this the easy way or the hard way, Barton,” one of them says. It’s a male voice, accent American northwest.

 

Clint sighs, sitting up. “I love a cliche,” he says. “Let’s go.”

 

They cuff him, which isn’t a surprise, sturdy iron bands held separate by a spreader bar. It’s the first intelligent thing they’ve done in prisoner transport since they’ve landed, and he almost wants to congratulate them, but he won’t give them the satisfaction.

 

The room they take him to is small and dark, housing only a table--bolted to the floor--and a few chairs. There’s a mirror on the wall which is so obviously two-way it’s almost laughable, and Clint waggles his eyebrows at it just to be a little shit as the MPs push him into one of the chairs and attach his cuffs to the table. “Don’t suppose I can get a cup of coffee?” he asks. “Water? Maybe a muffin?”

 

He hears one of the MPs snort behind his face mask.

 

“No,” one of the others says.

 

“Your customer service sucks,” Clint tells him.

 

The MP shrugs. “Should have thought of that before you ended up here,” he says. He tugs briefly at the chain on Clint’s cuffs, checking that it’s secure, and then motions the rest of his team towards the door, leaving Clint alone.

 

He sighs, leaning back in his chair. This isn’t his first tour in interrogation, and this part is always the most boring. At least they didn’t chain his feet. He crosses his legs at the ankles and tilts his head back, then winces at the rush of blood to the back of his brain. Absently, he starts whistling “Love Me Like You Do,” because Laura’s obsessed with Top 40 hits and it’s been stuck in his head for the past three days.

 

The door opens, and Secretary Ross strides in, a tablet in his hands. “Didn’t figure you for pop music, Barton,” he says dryly.

 

Clint shrugs his shoulders as much as the cuffs allow. “I’m a man of many interests, Thad,” he says.

 

Ross’s lips thin. “That’s Secretary,” he says.

 

“I didn’t vote for you,” Clint says.

 

“You don’t vote for Secretary of Defense.”

 

Clint squints at him. “Dude,” he says. “No shit. Jesus, you guys really think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”

 

Ross says nothing, just pulls out the other chair and sits down, his shoulders military-straight and his expression flat. “I don’t think you’re an idiot, Agent Barton,” he says. “I actually think you’re much smarter than you like to let people think you are.”

 

“Moi?” Clint bats his eyelashes.

 

“Cut the shit, Barton.” Ross puts his tablet down on the table and folds his hands into a steeple, glaring at Clint with steel-grey eyes. “You’re smart, but I’m smarter. You want off this rock any time before you’re in a pine box? You know you’re gonna have to give me something for it, and I want Rogers and Barnes.”

 

Clint raises his eyebrows. “Really? Just like that? You’re not even gonna try to Prisoner’s Dilemma me or anything?”

 

Ross’s lips curl. “I don’t need to,” he says. He turns the tablet down, flipped toward Clint. “I have insurance.”

 

Clint stills.

 

The image on the tablet is blurred, but the two figures are unmistakeable, despite the attempts at staying incognito, baseball caps and sunglasses. It’s CCTV footage, he realizes, probably taken from the airport in France. Clint recognizes his own leather jacket, the way Wanda hunches her shoulders when she’s trying to hide. She’d curled into him, jetlagged, allowing herself a moment of exhaustion, and he’d put a hand on the top of her head, gentle and heavy, an attempt at reassurance.

 

“I was a little surprised, to be honest,” Ross says. “My department always thought there was something going on with you and Romanoff. I mean, Maximoff--she’s a little young for you, isn’t she?”

 

“And you’re a son of a bitch,” Clint says flatly. “You’ve already got her drugged up and in a cage, Ross. You really think I believe you’re gonna let her go if I give you Rogers?”

 

“No.” Ross takes the tablet back. “But I’ll give you ten minutes with her.”

 

Clint narrows his eyes. “Why?”

 

“Partially? Because you’re a protector.” Ross leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. “It’s everywhere in your fighting style, Barton, always has been, all the way back to your stint in the Army. Loyalties aside, Rogers and Barnes can fend for themselves, and you know it. Your little Maximoff? She can’t.

 

“But mostly?” He smiles. “Mostly, it’s because you’ve got nothing else to bargain with, nothing else to offer. Wilson’s got his military record, he can leverage that for some soft treatment. Lang’s got insight into tech Hank Pym’s been trying to keep out of my hands for the past fifteen years. You?” He shakes his head. “You’re an old spy with good aim, Barton, and a damn good record for inspiring loyalty--must be, if you get guys like Steve Rogers to call you in a pinch. But right now? You’ve got nothing. And I think you know it.”

 

Clint takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. Runs through Laura’s birthday, Nat’s birthday, his anniversary, the kids’ birthdays, even Wanda’s, until his blood settles easy and calm in his veins.

 

Then he leans back in his chair, and looks Ross steadily in the face. “It’s cute,” he says quietly. “That a guy as high up as you still believes in something like loyalty. But let me explain something to you, and I’ll use very small words, so that you can follow.”

 

He shifts, flexing his fingers--they can’t go anywhere, not in the cuffs, but Ross’s glance still flickers down, his lips thinning. “Steve Rogers didn’t call me out of _loyalty_. He didn’t call me because he’s my friend, or because he knew I’d have his back. He called me because I get shit done. I get it done quickly, and I get it done quietly, and I get it done without witnesses. I make the hard calls, even when they’re not pretty. And that’s why Rogers is in the wind right now.”

 

Ross stares at him, his lips parting. “You…” Rage flashes over his features, just an instant, before it’s gone. “You were the distraction.”

 

Clint smiles, shows his teeth. “Like I said. Not just good aim.”

 

“Son of a bitch.” Ross gets to his feet. “It’s a cute schtick, Barton. The strong and silent routine. We’ll see if the rest of your team plays it as well as you do.”

 

“Sure.” Clint waits until Ross’s hand is stretched toward the door panel, and plays his trump card. “How’s your daughter, Thad?”

 

Ross stills.

 

“Sweet girl,” Clint continues. “Met her a few times, over the years. SHIELD stuff, you know. But Bruce talked about her all the time. She’s tenured at Harvard now, right? Or--” He snaps his fingers. “Huh. I guess you wouldn’t know.” He shakes his head. “Must suck, your baby girl refusing to talk to you for all these years. But I guess that’ll happen, after you try to blow up her boyfr--”

 

Ross slams his hand against the wall. Clint smirks.

 

It was a low blow, and he knew it.

 

But he’s a father, too. He knows what buttons to press.

 

“If your men touch another hair on Wanda Maximoff’s head,” Clint says quietly, eyes fixed on the line of Ross’s shoulders, “I will put a bullet in your daughter’s head when I get out of here.”

 

Ross turns. “I don’t appreciate that kind of bluff, Barton,” he says, cold and furious.

 

Clint raises his chin and meets his gaze. “Then it’s a good thing I don’t bluff, Ross.”

 

He does, and he is. Betty Ross _is_ a sweet girl, and doesn’t deserve her shithead of a father, and anyway, Bruce would kill him. But Clint doesn’t lose at poker, and whatever Ross sees on his face makes him draw back.

 

“You’re not going anywhere,” he says, but his eyes are less certain than they were before.

 

“Well,” Clint says. He smiles, thin and cold, lets it flash like a knife in the semi-dark room. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

 

...

 

The MPs bring him back to his cell, and he’s expecting them to drop him off and take Sam or Lang out when they go. But instead they dump him back into his cell and leave, and for a second, Clint’s a little bewildered as to why.

 

Then the door slides open again, and instead of Ross, or another group of MPs, it’s Tony Stark.

 

For the first time since Clint’s known him, he doesn’t stride into the room like he owns it. He takes slow, almost halting steps, one arm in a sling. Years of friendship spark a hint of concern in Clint’s chest before he remembers where he is and where Tony is, and the concern is replaced by a rush of bitterness so strong he can’t keep it down.

 

He starts a slow clap. “The futurist, gentlemen!” he calls, falsely-bright and petty. “The futurist is here! He sees all. He knows what’s best for you, whether you like it or not.”

 

Tony’s shoulders stiffen, and he turns away from the middle of the cell block, his expression caught somewhere between defensiveness and hurt. “Give me a break, Barton. I had no idea they’d put you here, come on.”

 

Clint spits on the floor. “Yeah, well, you knew they’d put us somewhere, Tony.”

 

“Yeah, but not some super-max floating ocean pokey,” Tony says, and _wow_ , Clint thinks, a little wildly, this is the track he’s taking? Loose and easy, like things are okay between them? “You know, this place is for maniacs, this is a place for--”

 

“Criminals?” Clint cuts him off, pushes himself to his feet. His ribs protest the way he does it, twisting up by his arms, but he doesn’t let it show on his face. “Criminals, Tony. I think that’s the word you’re looking for.” He rests his hands on the bars of the cell, leans forward. He can’t get into Tony’s space, not with inches of bulletproof glass between them, but he doesn’t need to. He knows how to make his body threatening even without the actual possibility of harm. “It didn’t used to mean me. Or Sam, or Wanda. But here we are.”

 

Tony’s eyes flash. “Because you broke the law.”

 

“Yeah,” Clint snorts.

 

“I didn’t make you.”

 

Clint rolls his eyes, turns away, hums a nameless tune. It’s immature, he knows, but he’s pissed and petty and Wanda hasn’t spoken a word since they’ve gotten here.

 

“You read it, you broke it.” Tony’s voice is getting heated now. “Alright? You’re all grown up, you’ve got a wife, and kids--I don’t understand, why didn’t you think about them before you chose the wrong side?”

 

Clint stops.

 

He’s imagined this moment over and over again over the years, has woken up from it in cold sweats, has had more panic attacks about it behind closed doors than he’s ever admitted to Laura or Nat. He took a risk, a huge one, when he brought the team to the farm, when he let them into the piece of his life he’d carved out and kept safe and secret and tucked away.

 

And he’d convinced himself, as he’d piloted the quinjet down into the fields of his and Laura’s little scrap of Iowa paradise, that this was his team. That he could trust them. That they’d have his back.

 

He sees it on Tony’s face, the instant realization that he’s taken it a step too far. For half a heartbeat, Clint thinks he’ll double back, that he’ll apologize, but Tony’s always had too much pride for that. He steps back, turns away, and Clint steps up to the glass, the cold anger in his veins heating and boiling over.

 

“You’d better watch your back with this guy,” he says, and slams his palms against the glass, futile and furious. “There’s a chance he’s gonna break it.”

 

Tony’s shoulders stiffen.

 

He doesn’t turn back.

 

…

 

Stark knocks out the surveilance when he talks to Sam and convinces him to give him Steve’s coordinates.

 

And then it’s a waiting game.

 

“He didn’t mean it,” Sam says quietly.

 

“Shut up, Sam,” Clint says, exhausted. This isn’t the first time they’ve had this exchange, but he’s getting sick of it. There’s no way Ross’s security team hasn’t gotten their audio back up--it’s been upwards of seven hours since Tony left, by Clint’s internal clock (which, sniper-trained, is rarely wrong). Even if he planted a hell of a virus, they could have installed a whole new system by now.

 

Scott shuffles around on his cot. “Do you think he--”

 

“Shut up, Scott,” Clint says.

 

“I was just gonna ask--”

 

“Shut _up_ , Scott.” He’s got a migraine. Maybe he is concussed. Shit. He closes his eyes, lets his head sink a little deeper into the mostly-flat pillow on the cot.

 

Wanda still hasn’t said a word. She’s moved a few times, shuffling once or twice, but mostly she’s just stared blankly ahead, her eyes flat. A female guard has come in three times since they’ve been here, flipping a switch that’s screened in the glass of Wanda’s cell, presumably to help her use the toilet.

 

Clint steels himself against the pain in his head and ribs and rolls off the cot to make another attempt. He settles himself cross-legged on the floor by the wall between his cell and Scott’s. He taps his knuckles on the glass. “Wanda?” he calls, tiredly. Both Sam and Scott glance at him, then at Wanda, just like they’ve done the last eight or nine times he’s tried this, to the same results. “Wanda? Come on, sweetheart, can you look at me?”

 

Nothing. She looks past him, her eyes half-lidded.

 

He curls his hands into fists. “Wanda,” he repeats, a little louder, though for all he knows, Ross has Wanda in a soundproof cell, and this is all useless. “Wanda, baby. Look at me.”

 

Still nothing. And then--

 

She blinks.

 

Just a slow, slow movement, her lashes lowering and raising. She furrows her brow.

 

Clint holds his breath, presses his hands against the glass. “Wanda?”

 

Her lips part, and then shape his name. If she says it out loud, it’s too softly for him to hear, but he can read her lips. He presses his palms against the glass. “Wanda,” he says, more firmly now. “Wanda, can you hear me?”

 

She blinks again. “Clint?”

 

His heart leaps in his chest--She’s in there, she’s still there, she’s _okay_. “Wanda--”

 

The cell block door opens. Clint whips his head around and nearly loses his balance. The team of MPs that come into the block don’t so much as glance at Wanda, and Clint spares half an instant to be grateful for that before he realizes why.

 

He sighs as they make a beeline for his cell, and gets to his feet. “Let me guess,” he says, and pitches his voice low and gruff. “‘You’ve got a visitor, Barton.’”

 

“Got it in one,” the closest one says. He slides the door to Clint’s cell open, and holds out Clint’s old friends the cuffs. Clint sighs again, and holds out his wrists.

 

They take him back to the interrogation room and chain him back to the table, and he lets himself sink into the uncomfortable chair. His nose itches, and he leans down so that he can scratch it, then rests his elbows on the table, rubbing his forehead to try and soothe the headache that’s been blossoming behind his eyes. Maybe he should have stuck to concussion protocol after all.

 

The door slides open. “Hey, Thad,” he says, not bothering to open his eyes. “Back for more?”

 

“Not quite.”

 

He knows that voice. Clint snaps his eyes open and sits up, staring.

 

His father-in-law lets the door to the interrogation close behind him, approaching the table with a tablet tucked under his arm. “Agent Barton,” he says calmly. “I’m Colonel Calvin Walker. I’m here to ask you a few questions.”

 

Carefully, so carefully, Clint schools his features to blankness.

 

The last time he saw Calvin Walker was two months ago, in Chicago. He and Laura had piled the kids into Laura’s SUV and driven out to her parents’ place for the weekend, and Lila and Coop had flung themselves, laughing and screeching, out of the car and into their grandfather’s arms. Clint had unbuckled Nate from his carseat and brought him up the stairs to the big farmer’s porch, handing him over with a grin, and Cal had made faces at him until Nate had squealed and grabbed his nose.

 

And now he’s sitting across from him, in a pressed, crisp suit, his face blank and calm.

 

Clint’s known for years that Cal’s done consulting with the Department of Defense since he retired from the Air Force. But he never quite expected their worlds to collide like this.

 

He’s been quiet too long, and there’s sure to be surveillance on this room. He takes a careful breath, and slips his customary smirk back into place. “Colonel,” he says, tilting his head to one side. “Not to be rude, but the last guy they sent me was a General. And the Secretary of Defense. You guys aren’t losing interest in me, are you?”

 

Cal’s lips quirk up at the corners, and Clint tries not to think about the fact that the last time he saw that little half-smile, it was across a chessboard in Calvin’s study. “Not in the slightest, Agent Barton.” He turns on his tablet, but doesn’t let Clint see the screen. “Tony Stark paid you an interesting visit, didn’t he?”

 

A chill flickers down Clint’s spine. So they did hear. “You could say that,” he says. “Always good to see an old friend.”

 

Cal raises one eyebrow. “I watched that security footage,” he says. “It didn’t look very friendly.”

 

Clint shrugs. “We say a lot of shit to each other.”

 

It’s bullshit, and from the flash in Cal’s eyes, he knows it. “I don’t think that’s true, Agent Barton,” he says quietly. He turns the tablet toward Clint, and taps it.

 

A video starts to play, footage from the cameras in Clint’s cell block, shot over Tony’s shoulder. “You’re all grown up, you’ve got a wife, and kids--I don’t understand, why didn’t you think about them before you chose the wrong side?”

 

Clint watches himself move, slow and sinuous, watches himself approach the glass. “Better watch your back with this guy,” his past self says, and then the release of too much coiled anger as he slams his hands to the glass.

 

Cal stops the video. “The Department never pegged you for a family man, Agent Barton,” he says, turning the tablet off. “It doesn’t fit with the rest of your profile at all.”

 

Clint has personally sat through two Walker Family Reunions with this man. _Not a family man_ his ass. “Could be,” he says, shrugging.

 

“But I think you must be,” Cal continues. He looks at Clint steadily. “I’m a father myself, you know--I know a defensive reaction when I see one. I think your friend Stark touched a nerve there.”

 

Clint narrows his eyes. Cal, he thinks, what the fuck are you playing at?

 

Cal folds his hands on the table. “Did you know,” he says, “that there are almost eighty thousand Bartons in the United States alone? It’s actually quite a common surname.”

 

“Is it,” Clint says. Not a question.

 

(He knows how common his name is. It was the only reason he’d caved when Laura had wanted to take his last name--he’d wanted her to keep hers. She’d patted his cheek, told him she appreciated his feminism, but that he could shut the fuck up.)

 

“It is,” Cal says. “There’s even twenty-six Clinton Bartons, if you’re interested--probably twenty-seven, since I’m assuming you do you don’t do your census forms under your own name.”

 

“I pay my taxes, though,” Clint offers.

 

Cal snorts. They’ve had this discussion. “I can’t help wondering,” he says. “What would make a husband and a father take up with a bunch of renegades and superheroes?”

 

There’s something in his eyes that Clint can’t quite place--not testing, not disapproving, but calculating.

 

“I had my reasons,” Clint says, spreading his hands as much as the cuffs allow. He’s not about to explain to the grandfather of his biological children that he and his wife decided it was worth risking his death and imprisonment to go spring their semi-adopted kid out of house arrest. “Not all family’s flesh and blood, Colonel.”

 

Cal’s expression doesn’t waver. “Agent Barton,” he says, leaning forward. “I’m here to make you an offer. If you _do_ have a family, they’re almost certainly at risk. The U.S. government would like to offer their protection.”

 

Clint looks at him, eyes narrowed, searching his face. Cal looks back.

 

The day they met, sixteen years ago, Cal sized him up with the practiced eye of a military career. He’d sat Clint down with a glass of whiskey, stared him in the face, and said, “People in your line of work make enemies, Clint.”

 

“With all due respect, sir,” Clint had said, running his thumb through the condensation on his glass, “so do yours.”

 

There’s not a fraction of Clint’s mind that thinks for an instant that Cal wants him to hand Laura and the kids over to the government.

 

“You know,” Clint says, holding his father-in-law’s gaze. “Not confirming or denying anything, but--I think I’m gonna take my chances.”

 

The approving smile that flickers across Cal’s face is there and gone so quickly the security cameras won’t pick it up, but Clint catches it before Cal smoothes his expression into flat disappointment. “I’m sorry to hear that, Agent Barton,” he says. He gets to his feet. “I hope you don’t come to regret it.”

 

“You and me both, Colonel,” Clint murmurs.

 

Cal pauses by the door, and then turns back toward him. “If you did have a family, Agent Barton, is there anything you’d want them to know?”

 

It’s not an olive branch, because they’re not at war. But it’s an outstretched hand.

 

Clint holds his gaze for another moment, and then lets himself smile, soft and quiet. He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “There’s nothing.”

 

 _Nothing they don’t already know_.

 

Cal nods. “Goodbye, Agent Barton.”

 

He knocks three times on the door. It slides open, and Clint watches Laura’s father leave him behind.

 

…

 

Two weeks--two weeks of pacing, of silence, of interrogation, of shit prison food, of more Geneva Convention violations than Clint’s willing to count--later, the lights in the cell block flicker.

 

Scott frowns, looking up at the ceiling. “What was that?”

 

Clint sits up. “I think,” he says, “that’s our rescue.”

 

Sure enough, a moment later, Steve Rogers emerges from the darkness. He’s out of uniform, shieldless, and looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. But when he sees them, he grins. “Hi,” he says. “Sorry I’m late.”

 

He says it like he’s just wandered into a dinner party without a bottle of wine, and Clint snorts out a laugh before he can stop himself. “Jesus Christ, Rogers,” he says. “Really?”

 

Steve spreads his hands in apology. “Sorry,” he says. “It’s been a long week.” His gaze sweeps to Sam like it’s drawn there. “You okay?”

 

Clint can’t see Sam’s face, but he hears his chuckle. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ll live.”

 

“Good.” Steve looks over his shoulder. “In here,” he calls.

 

A team of tall, lithe Black women dressed in stealth suits that make Natasha’s SHIELD uniform look ostentatious approach the cells, moving out of the darkness so smoothly Clint actually has to blink twice to make sure his eyes aren’t playing tricks on him. The one that reaches his door and sets some kind of electromagnetic device against the lock of his cell has a delicate ink tattoo tracing over her neck, and Clint recognizes it with a start.

 

“The Dora Milaje?” he says, looking sharply up at Steve. “Steve, what the hell? Who are you working with?”

 

Steve gives him a faint smile. “T’Challa’s helping me out with a few things,” he says. “As a ‘sorry I tried to kill your friend when he didn’t actually kill my dad’ kind of thing.”

 

The lock of Clint’s cell disengages, and the Dora Milaje steps back with a self-satisfied smile. “You’re welcome,” she says in accented English, dryly.

 

Clint winces, remembering his manners. “Sorry,” he says. “And thank you.”

 

She inclines her head. “You’re welcome,” she says again, more genuinely this time.

 

“Clint,” Sam calls.

 

His voice is tight and tense, and Clint realizes with a chill that he’s across the block, kneeling by the open door to Wanda’s cell. Clint’s running before he can stop to think, skidding to a stop beside him.

 

Wanda is on her side in the cell, still wrapped in the straightjacket, her hair lank and tangled around her face. She’s shaking, her arms trapped but her knees pulled tight into her body, and when Sam tries to reach for her, she makes a high, pained sound.

 

“We need to get that thing off her,” Sam says tightly.

 

“Okay,” Clint says. “Okay. Alright--let me.”

 

Carefully, he moves into the cell, kneeling down next to her and putting a hand on her shoulder. Wanda whimpers, but doesn’t flinch away from him. Her eyes are squeezed shut. “Hey, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “It’s me. It’s Clint. I’m gonna get you out of this thing, okay?”

 

She doesn’t answer. Clint puts his other hand on her waist and carefully turns her until he can reach the straps on her back. The straightjacket looks even more complicated from this angle, and he swears under his breath, looking over his shoulder. “Someone gimme a knife,” he calls.

 

One of the Dora Milaje appears in an instant with a wicked-looking blade, handing it to him hilt-first. He takes it from her with a nod and cuts the straightjacket off as quickly as he dares.

 

For all its straps and buckles, it’s still just fabric, and gives way fairly easily. He pulls it off her arms and it away, rubbing his hands over Wanda’s arms to get the blood flowing again. “There you go,” he murmurs, turning his attention to the collar at her throat. That looks more complicated, and he doesn’t dare cut it--it’s electric, in some way, and he doesn’t want to risk shocking her. He glances at the Dora Milaje. “What do you think--”

 

“Nareema,” she says. She leans past him, her dark eyes fixed on the collar, studying the clasp and the flashing mechanism that sits at her throat.

 

Wanda makes a quiet sound in the back of her throat as Nareema reaches out to touch the metal band, and Clint squeezes her arm gently. “Easy,” he murmurs. “Easy, sweetheart, I got you.”

 

Nareema glances at him, her gaze apprehensive and a little wary. “You are lovers?”

 

Clint blanches. “Why do people keep asking me that?” he snaps. “She could be my kid, Jesus.”

 

Something in his tone makes Wanda flinch, and he forces himself to settle, runs a careful hand through her tangled hair. “I’m sorry,” he says, quietly. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” He closes his eyes, exhales, and looks back at Nareema. “Just--help her. Please.”

 

“Quickly,” one of the other Dora Milaje says. “We are running out of time.”

 

Nareema gives a curt nod and returns her attention to the collar. After another moment, she sits back. “I cannot remove it,” she says. “Not without harming her. We will block the signal, and the will remove it in Wakanda.”

 

Clint startles. “Wakanda?”

 

Leaning against the wall of the cell, Steve offers a tired smile. “Surprise?”

 

“Jesus,” he mutters. “Alright. How do we keep this stupid thing from going off the second we pull her out of here?”

 

“Here.” Steve pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and crouches down beside him. Carefully, he threads it underneath the collar, folding it over the metal so that it forms a protective layer between the prongs and Wanda’s skin. “It’s not perfect, but--”

 

“It’s what we’ve got,” Clint fills in. He shoots Steve the best smile he can muster. “It really is good to see you, Cap.”

 

Steve rests a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry it took me so long.”

 

His eyes are exhausted, old, so old, in his young face. They’ve always looked old, but it seems like he’s aged ten more years since they said goodbye on the tarmac. Whatever happened in Siberia, it took a hell of a toll.

 

“Captain.” The Dora Milaje that spoke before has a hand to her ear, clearly listening to a comm line. “Five minutes.”

 

“Shit.” Steve stands. “We need to get out of here.”

 

Scott shoots Steve an apprehensive look. “Five minutes? Five minutes until what?”

 

“Til the security systems come back on and the sedatives we put in a bunch of guards start wearing off,” Steve says. He looks down at Wanda. “Clint, do you want me to--”

 

“No, I’ve got her.” Clint bends down, despite the screaming in his ribs, and gathers her carefully in his arms. His legs protest as he pushes himself to his feet, but he manages, Wanda’s head lolling against his shoulder. He adjusts his grip carefully, and turns to Steve. “Lead the way, Cap.”

 

Steve gives him a tight smile. “Not really a Captain anymore,” he says.

 

Clint raises his eyebrows. There’s a story there, he’s sure of it, but right now, he’s pretty sure it doesn’t matter. “Always a Captain to me, Steve,” he says. “C’mon. Get us out of here.”

 

Four minutes and fifty seconds later, they’re in a Wakandan stealth plane, the gangplank closing behind them. The pilot, probably another Dora Milaje, maneuvers them off the Raft before the lock has fully engaged, and Clint feels a wave of vertigo, stumbling back into a seat with Wanda in his lap. “Jesus,” he mutters. “Warn a guy.”

 

Scott looks fairly green. “Are we moving very fast?” he asks weakly. “I feel like we’re moving very fast.”

 

“Wakandan technology,” Nareema says calmly. She doesn’t seem at all bothered by the speed of their takeoff. “You will adjust in a moment.”

 

Sam drops into a seat next to Clint, peering at Wanda. “How’s she doing?”

 

Clint shifts, trying to get her to look at him, but she drives her face into the crook of his neck like Lila does when she’s having a nightmare. He presses his lips together. “I’d say not great,” he says. “Probably malnourished?”

 

Sam snorts. “We probably all are.” He looks up at Nareema. “Any medical equipment on this plane?”

 

It takes Sam and Nareema less than two minutes to go through the massive med kit and set up an IV. Clint pushes Wanda’s hair back gently, trying to get her attention. “Wanda,” he says. When she doesn’t respond, he reaches for her chin, maneuvering her face gently but firmly out of his chest like he does with the kids when they’re being uncooperative. “Honey, look at me. We’re gonna give you some fluids, okay?”

 

“I don’t want a needle,” she mumbles.

 

It’s the first thing he’s heard her say in weeks, and it stabs him in the heart. “I know you don’t, baby girl, but you’re dehydrated as hell, and you’re going to have to eat something once you’ve gotten a little stronger, but you’re going to take it a little bit at a time.”

 

She closes her eyes, lashes dusky against her pale skin. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she nods.

 

Clint glances at Sam and nods.

 

With hands that are surprisingly steady for someone who just spent more than two weeks in a supermax prison, Sam takes Wanda’s arm and rolls the loose sleeve of her prison uniform up. He ties a rubber tourniquet around her upper arm and uncaps the needle with his teeth. “Gonna pinch,” he warns Wanda gently, and she turns her face back into Clint’s shoulder. Sam slides the needle into her vein--she draws in a sharp breath--then places the cath and pulls the needle out. He tapes the tubing in place, then reaches up to untie the tourniquet. “Done,” he says, ruffling Wanda’s hair gently. “Like a champ.”

 

She opens her eyes and looks at him, her eyes the clearest they’ve been since they pulled her from her cell. “I’m not a _child_ , Sam.”

 

He snorts, handing Clint the IV bag and connecting it to the port on Wanda’s arm. “Obviously,” he says. “Otherwise I’d give you a lollipop or something.” He grins, though, and tugs her hair a little more playfully this time. “Good to see you again, Maximoff.”

 

Wanda purses her lips at him, but it gives way to a smile after a moment, soft, small, but _there_. Clint’s so relieved he could cry. “Thank you,” she murmurs.  
  


Sam winks at her, then knocks his forehead briefly against Clint’s in what Clint guesses is affectionate solidarity before heading back toward the cockpit to talk to Steve. Scott’s sprawled out across three other seats, limp and asleep, one arm dangling onto the floor. Clint sighs softly, closing his eyes and shifting a little, rearranging his legs under Wanda and trying to get more comfortable.

  

“Clint,” Wanda says quietly.

 

He glances down at her. She’s looking up at him, still half in his lap, though she’s picked her head off his shoulder now, her eyes a little brighter, a little more focused. They’re troubled now, though, dark with uncertainty and guilt, and he knows what she’s going to say before she says it. “Wanda,” he says. “It’s okay.”

 

“It isn’t.” She sits up, careful of the IV, onto her own seat, and pushes her hair back with her free arm. “Clint, it _isn’t_. I was out of it, but I heard what Tony--what _Stark_ said. He _told_ them about your family.” Her lower lip trembles. “Those people...those _people_ could have gotten to your family. And it would have been my fault. Because you came to help me.”

 

Clint shakes his head. “No.”

 

“Clint--”  
  


“No,” he interrupts, just sharply enough that she snaps her mouth shut, looking at him with surprise--and for good reason, he thinks. He’s rarely short with her. “Wanda, Tony was a dick back there, and he went _way_ over the line, but he was half-right. I’m a grown-up, I make my own decisions. And this one I made knowing full well what the risks were.”

 

Her lower lip trembles. “But…” She swallows visible. “But...Laura. Laura, and your children--”

 

He turns in his seat so he can face her, leaning forward. “Laura told me to go, Wanda,” he says gently.

 

Wanda furrows her brow. “She…” She trails off, shaking her head. “Why would she do that?”

 

Clint holds out a hand, palm up. Hesitantly, Wanda slips hers into it, and he wraps his fingers around hers. “Because you’re part of our family too, Wanda,” he says. She makes a soft sound of surprise, her eyes widening, and he squeezes her hand. “You’ve been part of it since the first time I brought you back.”

 

“I thought…” She swallows visibly, and when she speaks, her voice is a whisper. “Part of me always thought it was for...it was always for Pietro.”

 

He shakes his head. “No.” He reaches out with his other hand, tucking a few strands of her hair behind her ear. “Wanda, honey, Laura knows all your favorite foods, and she keeps your favorite candy in the pantry. Lila wanted to be _you_ for Halloween last year. Coop asked me if he could put you on his family tree project.”

 

Gently, he cups her cheek in his hand. “We’d never try to replace the family you lost, love,” he murmurs, and she sniffles in a breath, the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes finally spilling over. “But we’re never gonna leave you behind, either. Not ever.”

 

Wanda takes her hand out of his and curls it over his where it rests on her cheeks, and then she closes her eyes, leaning over and wrapping her good arm fiercely around his neck. Moving carefully to avoid the IV tubing, Clint puts his arms around her, rubbing her back gently. “You’re alright, sweetheart,” he says, and she shudders, pressing her face into his shoulder. “I’ve got you.”

 

Someone clears their throat, and Clint glances up to see Steve watching him uncertainly. “Just wanted to see if everything was okay,” he says slowly. “Do you--do you need anything?”

 

Clint looks down at Wanda, and then out the window of the plane. Clouds whip past them almost too quickly to see, but through them, he can see the first rays of morning sunlight. They’re out. They’re safe. They’re heading to--Wakanda, okay, that’s not ideal, but he can deal with that. Get a burner phone, get in touch with Laura. Get in touch with Nat. Put the family back together.

 

One step at a time.

 

“No,” he says. He shifts back in his seat, tucking his arm around Wanda’s shoulders and closing his eyes. “No. I’ve got everything I need.”

 

**then**

 

Wanda pulled herself off the ground, brushing grass and loose dirt off her jeans, and climbed back onto the porch to sit next to Clint. They sat quietly together for a few minutes, Clint sipping his beer, Wanda turning her mug of tea in her hands. The farmland around them rustled with the soft summer wind, the scents wheat and corn gentle on the air. 

 

Finally, as if she couldn't take the silence between them anymore, she blurted out, “But what if--”

 

She broke off, biting her lip. Clint glanced at her, eyebrows raised. When she didn’t speak again, he nudged her, pointedly. “Ask the question, girlie-girl,” he said dryly. “I’m not afraid to push you off this porch again.”

 

Wanda huffed a little, nudging him back, her eyes fixed on her tea.

 

When she spoke, her voice was soft, barely more than a whisper. “What if I just...can’t do it by myself anymore?”

 

Clint inclined his head. “Do what?”

 

“Anything.” She hesitated. “Everything.”

 

Clint hummed. He drained the rest of his beer, and then set it down on the porch step. Shifting closer to her, he slung an arm over her shoulders, and dropped a light, pointed kiss to the top of her head.

 

“Then you call me,” he said. “And I’ll come.”

 

 

_My father wasn’t around_

_I swear that_

_I’ll be around for you_

_I’ll do whatever it takes_

_I’ll make a million mistakes_

_I’ll make the world safe and sound for you_

(Lin-Manuel Miranda, _Hamilton_ )

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BECAUSE DAD FEELS. DAD FEELS FOR EVERYONE. 
> 
> And yes, the soundtrack for this chapter was just "Dear Theodosia" on repeat, because I'm _Hamilton_ trash. Y'all are lucky it wasn't "It's Quiet Uptown," because this whole thing could've been way angstier.
> 
> Questions? Comments? Feels? I'm [on tumblr](http://geniusorinsanity.tumblr.com). 
> 
> <3


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